I’m sure you’ve noticed that the Democratic Party establishment always tries to undermine progressives who are closest to Democratic Party ideals and values— at least FDR-era ideals and values— in favor of Republican-lite candidates. That’s how we wind up with catastrophic conservatives holding the party agenda back— like Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, Mark Warner, the Delaware twins, the New Hampshire twins… all the garbage in the Senate and rot gut crap in the House like Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Henry Cuellar (TX), Don Davis (NC), Jim Costa (CA), Jared Golden (ME), Scott Peters (CA), members who oppose anything remotely smacking of progressive.
In an OpEd for the NY Times yesterday, Imagine if Another Bernie Sanders Challenges Joe Biden, Peter Beinart wrote “When Bernie Sanders exited the 2020 race— after winning more than 1,000 delegates— he cashed in his votes for public policy clout. Sanders’ supporters joined Biden’s allies in working groups that crafted a common agenda on the economy, education, health care, criminal justice, immigration and climate change. From those task forces came what Barack Obama called “the most progressive platform of any major-party nominee in history.” And that progressivism continued into Mr. Biden’s presidency. One hundred days after he took office, the New York Times concluded that he had “moved leftward with his party, and early in his tenure is driving the biggest expansion of American government in decades.” By challenging him from the left, Sanders didn’t only change Biden’s candidacy. He also made him a better president… Long before Bernie Sanders ran for president, progressives had a long history of using primary challenges to convey their frustration with Democratic Party elites.”
Republicans have a mirror image to contend with. The establishment runs from their extremist MAGA fringe, a fringe that is taking over the GOP in a way that progressives have failed to do within the Democratic Party. Yesterday, Atlanta Journal-Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein wrote that “A far-right faction that has gained clout in the Georgia GOP wants to give the state party new powers to block candidates from qualifying to run as Republicans if they’re deemed to be insufficiently conservative or a ‘traitor’ to the party… The rule change is being championed by leaders of the Georgia Republican Assembly, a conservative faction that has vilified Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other Republicans who rejected Donald Trump’s demands to overturn his election defeat. Under the proposed rule change, the Georgia GOP convention could vote to prevent a political candidate from qualifying to run as a Republican in the next election, giving the state party’s 1,500 or so delegates authority to pick favorites in top races.”
In an absurd NY Times puff piece yesterday, sometime self-professed moderate, Nancy Mace, who represents a swing district in South Carolina (now safer after Jim Clyburn cut a sleazy deal with the state GOP to transfer African-American Democratic precincts from her district to his own), had an opportunity to paint herself as a martyr. She claims to be a mainstream Republican though— after whining— she always votes with the extreme facsists and MAGAts. Annie Karni began her piece, “It was just after Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, had fired off a blunt text to the No. 3 House GOP leader— featuring two f-bombs and four demands that needed to be met to gain her vote for the party’s debt limit plan— that she experienced a momentary flash of dread. ‘Now I’ll look like a flip-flopper,’ Mace worried aloud.” She went from a ‘hard no,’ to voting with Marjorie Traitor Greene, Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert.
She often styles herself as a maverick independent in the mold of Senator Joe Manchin III, the West Virginia Democrat whose tendency to buck his party has earned him outsize power in the closely divided chamber— and the political fame that goes with it. But she has built the voting record of a mostly reliable Republican foot soldier, even as she publicly criticizes her own party and racks up television hits and social media clicks. And Mace— savvy and irreverent— has become fluent in the art of the political troll, finding ways to signal to the MAGA base that she hasn’t forsaken it.
She has repeatedly, and baselessly, accused the Biden family of being involved in “prostitution rings.”
…”I’m trying to show how you can bring conservatives and independents along to be on the same page,” she said. “Americans want us to work together. That’s not what’s happening. There’s very little that we’ve done that’s going to get across the finish line to Biden’s desk to sign.”
Mace has yet to prove that it’s possible.
The debt ceiling vote was the third time in four months that Mace had publicly threatened to break with her party on an issue where her vote was critical, before ultimately falling in line.
…In a party shaped by extremists who view the middle ground with disdain, the day-to-day can be pretty “lonely,” she said, noting that she has few friends on Capitol Hill. She got a dog during the pandemic, a Havanese named Liberty, and started carrying a gun at all times when threats against her increased after she voted to certify the election. She said that only “emboldens me,” as does the fact that she’s not the popular girl at the lunch table. She calls herself “a caucus of one.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Hughes decided to tackle how this dynamic is playing out in the 2024 Senate contest, which is the GOP’s to blow. That map makes it nearly impossible for them to lose— unless an inordinate number of candidates turn out to be MAGAts. The GOP establishment (McConnell primarily) is working to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Hughes wrote that “Headed into the next election, GOP leaders want to make sure they don’t blow it again, in the face of reluctance from some popular Republicans to run and the continued influence of Trump… Many candidates aligned with Trump and his false claims of election fraud won GOP races in 2022 over more-establishment candidates but then lost in the general election. ‘Republicans are tired of losing,’ said Mike Berg, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm. He said that NRSC Chairman Steve Daines (R-MT) ‘is working hard to recruit candidates who can win both a primary and a general election.’ Trump plans to make endorsements in key races, aides said. He has disputed that his endorsements have hurt the party’s chances.”
None of the 11 seats the Republicans are defending next year are considered competitive, though progressive firebrand Lucas Kunce is making Josh Hawley’s reelection big look increasingly rocky and corporate establishment candidate Colin Allred is trying to give Ted Cruz a tougher election. Several of the 23 Democratic incumbents, on the other hand, are uphill battles: West Virginia, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania and Kyrsten Sinema’s seat in Arizona is a bizarre case of it’s own with Wall Street, Clarence Thomas briber Harlan Crow and other right-wing billionaires trying to help Sinema, who is despised by Democrats and independents and not supported by Republicans who are trying to figure out if they should go for the gold with an out-right Nazi or dial it back little.
Party leaders believe they scored a win when West Virginia’s Republican governor, Jim Justice, a former Democrat, said he would run for the Senate seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. Manchin hasn’t said whether he will run again in a state that Trump won by nearly 40 points in 2020.
National Republican groups favor Justice over Rep. Alex Mooney as their nominee. Justice has the backing of Daines as well as the Senate Leadership Fund, which is affiliated with McConnell. The antitax Club for Growth, meanwhile, is backing Mooney, who has called Justice a RINO candidate— a Republican in name only.
…Other races are still shaping up. In Michigan, GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga is looking at a possible run for Senate to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Huizenga, who came to Congress in the 2010 tea party wave, is weighing the arduous campaigning and fundraising required to run statewide as well as backbiting within his party.
“Michigan, to be frank, is a mess politically right now,” Huizenga said in an interview earlier this year, citing in part a previous effort within his home county’s Republican party to initiate a primary challenge against him. “It’s going to be hard attracting good candidates for all offices, and we need to work through that and figure it out in a hurry.”
The Michigan state Republican party is led by Kristina Karamo, who said her own 2022 secretary of state’s race as well as the 2020 presidential contest were stolen. Mr. Huizenga has previously said that research by his own office found no credible evidence of widespread election fraud in 2020 in Michigan— one of the states where some Republicans sought to challenge election results.
In Arizona, former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has declined to run. Ducey sat out of the 2022 Senate race against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, despite efforts by McConnell to recruit him. In his stead, venture capitalist Blake Masters won the GOP nomination but lost the general election by about five points.
Ducey isn’t expected to run in 2024, according to people familiar with his thinking. Defeated gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is expected to jump into the race for the seat currently held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. A run by Lake would likely motivate many pro-Trump voters but turn off some centrists with her claims of election fraud.
In Ohio, state Sen. Matt Dolan, a co-owner of the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, has more campaign cash for 2024 than any other Republican running for Senate. But businessman Bernie Moreno drew encouraging words from Trump, who said on social media that Moreno “would not be easy to beat.” They are challenging for the seat held by Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Another top target is Montana, where Republicans are looking to oust Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT), who lost to Tester in 2018, has been working the phones to test support for a run, said David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, which supports fiscal conservatives and has conducted its own polling showing support for Rosendale. But Rosendale is a polarizing figure in the House, where he voted multiple times against elevating Rep. Kevin McCarthy to speaker. A spokeswoman for Rosendale didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“He could beat Tester this time around,” McIntosh said.
Daines has focused on recruiting an alternative in Montana, such as Tim Sheehy, a military veteran who founded an aerial firefighting company.
In Pennsylvania, Daines has focused on recruiting David McCormick, a former hedge-fund executive who lost a GOP Senate primary in 2022, over GOP Rep. Doug Mastriano, who lost the 2022 gubernatorial race by about 15 points to Democrat Josh Shapiro. Republicans worry that if Mastriano wins the Senate nomination he would be a long shot to oust Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who is up in 2024.
“They’re showing serious interest,” Daines said about Sheehy and McCormick.
If Republicans nominate MAGAts, like Mastriano, Rosendale, Mooney and Lake, the Democrats have a chance— slight as it is— to hold the majority. Ruben Gallego is expected to hold the Arizona seat for the Democrats. If Kunce or Allred, or whichever basketball star the Florida Democrats manage to recruit, win, the Democrats could even increase their majority, as unlikely as that seems
FlaDems remain pathetic. My old law school acquaintance John Morgan wants to run Grant Hill for Senate, while others suggest D Wade. One idea is bad, the other is worse. At least Hill has a Duke degree. Wade was academically marginal getting into Marquette and never graduated. He helped lead Heat to 3 NBA titles and remains a local legend in SoFla, but his appeal on the I-4 corridor and points north would likely be limited.
Hill has been peripherally involved in past Dem campaigns, but he doesn't appear to have ever taken any public stances of note. He presumably would have appeal on the critical I-4 corridor. Normally, one expects a Senate nominee to have held SOME form of…
no fucking way. the map stinks. and the democrap party continues to "grayson" better-sounding candidates and force their voters to have to hold their lunch down and vote for the steaming lakes of pig shit that the party (read: money) approves of.
so... not all that many will bother to vote.
wild card: the supremes might make being gay illegal by then. that will change things a bit.