Posted on 10/05/2023 3:26:08 PM PDT by cotton1706
An endorsement from Kevin McCarthy was supposed to be a blessing for Republicans in competitive primaries next year.
But now primary challengers see it as a liability.
McCarthy’s ouster from the speakership is a sudden opening for primary contestants who have already gone on the attack against the frontrunners who earned his endorsement.
“Voters don’t want a McCarthy Republican,” Joe Earley, who is running against a McCarthy-endorsed candidate in West Virginia, said in a statement to POLITICO. “They want a true conservative, and this situation has exposed how poor a job that McCarthy has done and that my opponent has refused to reject his endorsement.”
And few of McCarthy’s benefactors have come to his defense.
McCarthy threw his weight around in competitive races early in the 2024 cycle, backing candidates for at least eight House seats: Tom Barrett in MI-07; state Rep. Heidi Kasama in NV-03; West Virginia state Treasurer Riley Moore in WV-02; former state Rep. Craig Riedel in OH-09; former Rep. Yvette Herrell in NM-02; Scott Baugh in CA-47; former Rep. Mayra Flores in TX-34; and Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln
All of these races — with the exception of the open primary in the deep red WV-02 — are on the NRCC’s target list. McCarthy is a prolific fundraiser and has an extensive political network that was poised to boost these candidates. It’s unlikely that will immediately crumble away just because he’s no longer House speaker. But some Republicans running for Congress see his firing as fodder to take down their opponents who earned his endorsement.
Kasama has “McCarthy's backing, the same guy who's let us down time and time again,” former Nevada state Sen. Elizabeth Helgelien, one of Kasama’s primary opponents, said Wednesday. She added that the “district deserves better than someone who’s okay with broken promises.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Glad the article spelled them out.
Primary them!
Keeping your promises would keep this kinda thing from happening, Kevin.
Apparently you thought integrity was fungible.
Well that one sure backfired on the rinos. I’ll bet an endorsement by Gaetz still holds true ;>))
A mini war of independence. What a much-needed shakeup.
“Primary them!”
1. These aren’t incumbents, any of them. They ARE the ones doing the “primarying”. And they aren’t all squishes despite being tarred with the McCarthy Endorsement.
2. They are all running in districts with DEMOCRAT incumbents, or open seats, and not challenging any GOP incumbents anyway.
I’m hoping McCarthy’s ouster is good news for candidates like Joe Kent in Washington’s 3rd district.
McCarthy backed Jaime Herrera Beutler (RINO) in 2022. Kent won the primary but had to spend a lot of money to do it. A Democrat won the general election.
I’m so glad McCarthy is gone.
Looks like some on here aren’t using good trigger discipline.
doesn’t matter what ‘they’ do, ‘they’ are not DJT.
For those to whom this list of names means nothing, or who ignorantly think “If McCarthy endorsed them then I already know all I need to” about them:
Barrett, Riedel & Harrell are conservatives; Baugh has been one in the past too, and came close to ousting a liberal Democrat last November.
Flores won the historic special election in TX-34 in June of 2022 and then lost in November before being able to compile any meaningful legislative record, so we don’t know about her. Harrell is also a former member of Congress who lost due to Democrat gerrymandering in 2022.
In NV-03, the comment in the article from Elizabeth Helgelien lacks any substance (or anything about her opponent at all) but Kasama IS in fact a McCarthy-esque squish and should definitely be avoided.
This event with McCarthy just may mark the implosion of the RINO Uniparty once and for all.
Majewski was crushed by Kaptur because he was a lousy candidate, not because of the lies about his military records. If he wins the primary, he'll get crushed again. He's just a bad candidate, and Kaptur will spend millions against him.
Yes, stop fighting each other and start fighting the Democrats
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