The first Republican to impeach Donald Trump and vote to face Trump-endorsed challengers in the primary paid a price in South Carolina. Maine previewed a possible rematch between Trump and Joe Biden in 2024. And a heavily Latino swath in southern Texas turned to the right. With primaries on Tuesday in South Carolina, Nevada, North Dakota, and Maine, the midterm primary calendar has now covered nearly half of the states. Read on to find out Trump’s impeachment vengeance: 5 takeaways from a big primary night; the incumbents, and the anti-establishment fervour on the right.
Trump’s impeachment vengeance: 5 takeaways from a big primary night
Impeachment is a Killer
If you’ve learned anything from this year’s primary, it’s that Trump isn’t invincible. Both Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensprenger have defeated Trump-backed challengers in Georgia. A handful of House Republicans who voted to set up a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 riots in the Capitol survived last week’s Primaries. And on Tuesday in South Carolina, Representative Nancy Mace was in front of a Trump-backed challenger, despite criticism of the former president. If there is a limit to how far a Republican can go against Trump, the other closely watched House race in South Carolina appeared to show it. Tom Rice, the representative who voted to impeach Trump and never stopped criticizing him, was defeated in his primary by Trump-backed state Representative Russell Fry.
Tom Rice received roughly a quarter of the vote in the coastal district he has represented for a decade, 17 months after voting to impeach. Tom Rice stated that he is at peace with his impeachment vote and hopes to inspire others not to cower to Trump, but he may not have achieved the goal. The results are tough for the rest of the house candidates who voted to impeach Trump and haven’t retired. Tom Rice and his family endured personal turmoil, murder threats, and harassment emails but only saw a brutal defeat against a Trump-backed foe. Few would want to follow his path. However, Tom Rice was probably in a worse condition than many others who chose impeachment. Representatives Peter Meijer (R-Mich.), David Valadao (R-Calif.), And Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) All have somewhat moderate districts where Democrats and independents can support their decisions. Herrera Beutler and the representatives. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) Also has all-party primaries that can provide some cushioning. “He voted for impeachment, but Mace did not,” said a South Carolina Republican who is familiar with the Mace and Rice campaign.
Trump’s the establishment now
With the support of Trump and several prominent Republican leaders and groups, Adam Laxalt was able to represent Nevada in the Senate. But whatever the result, it wasn’t expected to be that difficult for a former State attorney general with a political pedigree. Injured Afghanistan veteran and anti-establishment Sam Brown secured the support of the Nevada Republican Party that spring, forcing Laxalt and his allies to fight back.
In the last three weeks alone, the Club for Growth has spent about $ 750,000 on television ads attacking Brown to strengthen Laxalt’s support among Republicans. Laxalt took Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to a campaign with him in Nevada, where he received support from Trump last week in the form of Teletown Hall. And for all of Laxalt’s national support by the big name, he and Sam Brown raised similar amounts throughout the primary, with Brown being successful with a small donor. While Trump remains wildly popular among Nevada Republicans, according to the most recent Nevada Independent poll, 89 percent of Republican voters there favour him, but he still won’t clear most GOP primary fields in 2022.
Teeing up a Trump-Biden preview in Maine
Few states offer a better preview of the potential rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2024 than the Governor’s election scheduled for Tuesday in Maine.
The Republican Governor Paul Lepage back here to challenge Democratic governor Janet Mills could be hardly more Trump like the kind of brash vulgarity-prone politician who told former President Barack Obama to “go to hell.” and blaming on the state’s heroin epidemic on drug dealers with names like “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty,” who came to Maine and left after impregnating a “young white girl,” according to LePage. He has told that he was “Donald Trump before Donald Trump.” Then there is Mills, who is not.
“I don’t even know what’s the correct word for his attitude towards governing. Flamboyant, maybe?” Said David Farmer, A Democratic political operative who was deputy chief of staff to LePage’s predecessor governor John Baldacci “a lot of headlines, and Mills governed with no drama, like the Biden in a sense.”
Also Read: Rough Waters Ahead For President Biden
Democrats take a blow in Texas
On Tuesday night, the House Republicans made a huge effort to turn South Texas Road red, capturing a heavily Latino and historically Democratic. The Republican Marya Flores will become the first Republican to represent the South Texas district in modern history. There are two nightmares for the Democrats here. They lost an important seat in a razor-thin majority of the Representatives, putting pressure on their ability to pass the bill for the rest of the year. But Republicans are also gaining important momentum in the areas they are seriously targeting in the fall. South Texas made a right swing in 2020, buoyed by the popularity of Trump in the region.
This race shows that it wasn’t a coincidence. Even though Biden scored four points in the district in 2020, Flores has built a comfortable lead over Democrat Dan Sanchez. The special election was held under the old congressional district lines due to the resignation of Democrat Filemon Vela. The new boundaries will go into effect in the fall, transforming the district into one that Biden would have won by 16 points. However, incumbency and the cachet of her upset will give Flores a fighting chance to keep it. Republicans are now even more confident that they will be able to flip two other Democratic-held seats in the Rio Grande Valley, which will be even more competitive.
Dean Heller’s demise
Heller, on the other hand, was trailing in Nevada’s Republican gubernatorial primary. Heller was trailing not only former Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who was leading, but also two other contenders, who were trailing in single digits, with more than a third of the expected vote in.
If the results hold, it’s difficult to figure out how Heller can overcome this defeat and rebuild his image if he wants to run again with Nevada voters. As a kid, Heller, who delivered newspapers to the Governor’s Mansion in Carson City, wanted to be Governor for decades. He first contemplated making a bid for the office in 1998 and running for 2018 until it became clear that then- State attorney General Adam Laxalt was planning to run. In the early days of his political career, Heller gained a reputation as a lateral thinker who did not follow party lines. He first ran for the state assembly as a 30-year-old Republican pro-abortion right Mormon.
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