Democrats’ most dangerous gamble – CNNPolitics
Their effort, repeated in multiple primaries so far this year, meets their ultimate test Tuesday night in Michigan.
Full primary coverage:
Helping Meijer’s opponent
Meijer’s profile in courage earned him the enmity of Trump supporters and a primary challenge from John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official and 2020 election denier.
It is Gibbs who is getting the tacit help of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The DCCC is the organization tasked with the uphill job of keeping control of the House of Representatives for Democrats.
Rather than buying ads for Democrats around the country, the group poured more than $300,000 into ads focused on Gibbs and his ties to Trump. The ads seem designed to do more to help Gibbs with Trump voters than hurt him.
Gambling on November
The gamble, of course, is that in this election year where Democrats are less energized and Republicans are expecting to make gains in the House, these right-wing candidates might get elected.
If we’ve learned anything from the destabilizing political career of Trump, who shocked even himself with his 2016 Electoral College victory, it’s that if two people are on the ballot in November, either one can win.
Where else are Democrats helping far-right Republicans?
It’s a recipe being repeated not just in Meijer’s race, but in a number of races across the country.
The help has occurred, with varying degrees of success, in a House race in California; governors races in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Maryland; and the Colorado race for US Senate.
What does the help look like?
Riffs on the method came in Illinois and Colorado, where Democratic money was used to attack the moderate in the GOP primary instead of pumping up the far-right candidate.
The Republican candidates backed by Democrats lost races in Colorado, but won in Illinois and Maryland.
Has this been done before?
“On the other hand, if you went down the list of issues, there was not a dime’s worth of difference among the three primary candidates on how they would have voted if they had become senators,” McCaskill argued. “Getting Todd Akin as the opponent in the long run made it more likely that Missourians would not be represented by someone who held those extreme views.”
What all those previous examples lack is the underlying theme of election denialism, which Democrats say they’re fighting and that has shaken the very concept of democracy in the US.
All’s fair
It’s also true that if Republicans win the House majority in November’s midterm elections with Meijer’s help, any further January 6 inquiry in the House will end.
Control of the House is the goal
When Meijer has complained that Democrats on the House January 6 committee should keep out of the primary, he’s singled out Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, the committee member who is locked in her own close reelection race. Luria has worked with Meijer on foreign policy issues, but she said it’s not her business what the DCCC does in the primaries.
‘Spare me …’
Merica also talked to numerous Democrats openly critical of the strategy.
And Meijer, the Republican, is quoted alleging the obvious hypocrisy and saying Democrats claiming to protect democracy are “shameless” for also helping election-denying candidates.
“Spare me that bullshit,” Meijer said, according to Merica. “It just shows that nothing is above petty partisan politics, that at the end of the day, all that matters is the letter next to your name.”
If Democrats can somehow keep control of the House by a vote or two, these realpolitik efforts will be hailed as smart politics. If not, Democrats will bear some responsibility for putting more election deniers in office.
Election skepticism goes hyperlocal
Key lines: And as adherents of election skepticism have pushed their theories into more obscure corners of American democracy, state election officials are now scrambling to address the new challenges. They warn that these isolated pockets of resistance to carrying out normally ceremonial election functions, such as certifying results, could lead to chaos in future elections if they spread.
“It’s in the weeds that we are seeing this destabilization,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat. “It’s one of the many indications that the democracy is at code red.”