The fact that the Republican party is fracturing doesn’t surprise me. But I had expected it to be a split between conservatives and moderates, not between establishment and outsider.
This split occurred a long time ago with moderates leaving when someone too conservative for their “taste” won the nomination. In Virginia, the stupid John Warner organized a third party nomination to steal just enough votes from Ollie North to throw the senate election to LBJ’s son in law. Last year, the same John Warner actually did a commercial for the Democrat Mark Warner who only beat the Republican by 13,000 votes statewide. I don’t it believe it made that much difference (John Warner was a stupid old man when he was young) but it does make some middling road voters think the Rep is some kind of extremist if his “own party” doesn’t support him.