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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
House GOP embroiled in escalating primary feuds with majority on the | |
line | |
By Manu Raju and Melanie Zanona, CNN | |
Updated: | |
6:00 AM EDT, Sun May 5, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
GOP Rep. Don Bacon has had it with the far-right of his conference. | |
They’ve thrown out and are trying to , all while scuttling their | |
leadership’s agenda and now actively campaigning against incumbent | |
Republicans — including himself. | |
After House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good of Virginia announced his | |
support for Bacon’s GOP rival ahead of his May 14 primary, the | |
Nebraska Republican now plans to take matters into his own hands. | |
“I am supporting Bob Good’s opponent now … because Bob Good came | |
out and endorsed my opponent,” Bacon, who says he has never endorsed | |
against a colleague until now, told CNN. “So we’re going to go in | |
with everything we’ve got. That’s how it works.” | |
It has long been a breach of protocol on Capitol Hill to campaign | |
against sitting members of the same party. But the 118th Congress has | |
seen the House GOP descend into a seemingly , with members hurling at | |
each other, pointedly blaming each other for their failures to enact a | |
conservative agenda and now actively stumping to defeat their own | |
Republican colleagues in races that will carry major consequences for | |
the direction of the party. | |
In Texas, Rep. Tony Gonzales is trying to fend off a challenger backed | |
by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and by Good — whom the incumbent | |
Republican — ahead of his May 28 runoff. In South Carolina, members | |
of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus are rallying around conservative | |
state Rep. Adam Morgan, who is trying to knock off Rep. William Timmons | |
in the June 11 primary. , center-right Republicans and the ousted | |
former Speaker Kevin McCarthy are helping Republican challenger John | |
McGuire ahead of the June 18 primary against Good, one of who voted to | |
oust McCarthy last fall. | |
Other intraparty feuds are also taking shape — in defiance of House | |
Speaker Mike Johnson, who has told his colleagues and stop campaigning | |
against each other. | |
Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington state, one of two remaining in the wake | |
of the 2021 Capitol insurrection, faces the ire of the MAGA base with | |
Trump publicly calling for his defeat. Rep. Scott Perry of | |
Pennsylvania, a former Freedom Caucus leader, told colleagues recently | |
he was looking into the race to consider whether to prop up | |
Newhouse’s GOP challenger, Jerrod Sessler, according to a source | |
familiar with the matter. (Perry’s office didn’t respond to a | |
request for comment.) | |
And in the eleventh hour before a filing deadline late last month, a | |
primary challenger emerged against Gaetz — the leader of the effort | |
to oust McCarthy — who has made no secret of his desire to see | |
Gaetz’s career come to an end. The development comes as some McCarthy | |
associates had been trying to recruit a candidate to topple Gaetz. Now | |
McCarthy allies in the House GOP Conference are considering giving a | |
boost to Aaron Dimmock, the retired Navy officer facing off against | |
Gaetz in the August 20 primary. | |
“I would really like it if someone were to come here and focus on | |
governing instead of getting on television,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, | |
a Wisconsin Republican who recently in a tense confrontation on the | |
House floor. “The entire conference is sick and tired of Matt Gaetz, | |
Bob Good and (Rep.) Chip Roy (of Texas). They’re bullies and the only | |
way to get back at a bully is to push back hard on that.” | |
Gaetz’s response: Bring it on. | |
Gaetz brushed aside his primary challenge, attacking his foe as | |
out-of-step with his Florida panhandle district and saying that the | |
race makes him “as excited as a Golden Corral buffet.” | |
The battles underscore the larger debate within the GOP between members | |
who are open to bipartisan deals to govern incrementally in a divided | |
Washington and hardliners who view such compromises as an affront to | |
conservative orthodoxy — a feud that intensified in the 2010 tea | |
party wave and has grown more pronounced in the Trump era. And while | |
the outcomes in most of these primary races won’t impact the GOP’s | |
efforts to keep the majority, they will shape the makeup of the next | |
House Republican Conference and how they pursue their agenda. | |
“We go for the most conservative of people to run for office,” said | |
Rep. Ralph Norman, a Freedom Caucus member who is backing GOP | |
challenger Morgan against Timmons, a fellow South Carolinian. “This | |
country is in trouble. We got to step out. And that’s what we’re | |
willing to do.” | |
‘It’s all the norms that have been undermined’ | |
Unlike in the other races, Bacon’s is a true swing seat — given | |
that Joe Biden carried the district in 2020 — and could help tilt the | |
balance of power in November. Already, both Democratic and GOP groups | |
have poured in roughly the same amount on the airwaves — with a total | |
of $3 million in ad spending so far. | |
Democrats are hoping state Sen. Tony Vargas can knock off Bacon, who is | |
heavily favored to win his primary against Dan Frei — a conservative | |
candidate who emerged on Nebraska’s political scene in the tea party | |
era a decade ago in an unsuccessful primary bid against former Rep. Lee | |
Terry. He has made the national debt and illegal immigration a | |
centerpiece of his campaign against Bacon. | |
“He’s been there eight years. When he went there, we were roughly | |
$17 trillion in debt. We’re $34 trillion in debt,” Frei said in an | |
interview. “When he first got there we had tens of thousands of | |
people crossing the border, we now have millions in this country.” | |
Asked whether it was fair to single out Bacon, Frei said: “How can | |
you not blame those that are there?” | |
Another Bacon foe trying to undercut his bid: Eric Underwood, the GOP | |
chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party. | |
Underwood told CNN his decision to endorse Frei was a personal one and | |
argued Bacon doesn’t represent the values of Nebraska Republicans, | |
citing Bacon’s position on same-sex marriage and his support for the | |
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, though the incumbent | |
has also backed more stringent border security measures. | |
The chairman also defended working against an incumbent from his own | |
party. “There’s a lot of misconceptions of what a party is supposed | |
to be doing,” Underwood said in a phone interview. “The objective | |
of the party is to further our principles and the maintenance of the | |
government, of, by and for the people.” | |
Asked whether he’s worried Frei could cost Republicans the seat in | |
November, Underwood told CNN: “We believe that everybody’s | |
electable if they put the work and the effort into it, and surround | |
their campaign with the values and the principles of the party.” | |
Underwood said there would be no financial resources or fundraising | |
done by the party for Frei’s campaign. But a pro-Frei mailer | |
attacking Bacon, shared with CNN, indicates it was paid for by “the | |
Nebraska Republican Party.” | |
Underwood maintains they were fully reimbursed by the Frei campaign for | |
the mailer, and said it’s just one of several party resources that | |
endorsed candidates are allowed to take advantage of. | |
Good, the House Freedom Caucus chairman, declined to comment on Capitol | |
Hill last week when asked why he was backing Bacon’s opponent. And | |
his office didn’t respond to a request seeking comment. | |
National groups are coming to Bacon’s defense. | |
“We wish we weren’t having this internal fight,” said Sarah | |
Chamberlain, head of the center-right Republican Main Street | |
Partnership, which is dropping $450,000 in ads to boost McGuire, | |
Good’s primary challenger in his rural Virginia district. | |
In an interview, Bacon pushed back against his foes and defended his | |
record. And he said the critics represent a “Steve Bannon faction” | |
of the Nebraska GOP, adding this of his party chairman: “He says he | |
wants unity. I’ve seen more disunity from this leadership team back | |
there dividing us.” | |
Johnson has endorsed Bacon and campaigned for the congressman in his | |
district in December. Bacon has over 100 endorsements, and no elected | |
official from Nebraska is supporting Frei. | |
Bacon said that his critics may take issue with some of his votes, | |
including to approve billions in aid to Ukraine. “I’m more of a | |
traditional Republican and some of these folks are definitely | |
isolationist,” he said. “It’s their right to feel that way. I | |
don’t think that’s a Republican.” | |
Bacon, who has aligned himself with his party’s leadership on key | |
issues, criticized his colleagues for undercutting “the norms” of | |
the House — including by stymying legislation on the first procedural | |
vote, something that had rarely been done before but has been | |
weaponized by hardliners in this Congress. | |
“It’s all the norms have been undermined by these guys,” Bacon | |
said. | |
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