The Republican Party is still former President Donald Trump’s party.
That is one obvious reality that emerges from the overwhelming defeat of U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) by Harriet Hageman, who was endorsed by former President Trump, in the Republican primary for the Wyoming at-large Congressional District, with Hageman garnering 66 percent of the vote to Cheney’s nearly 29 percent.
Cheney lost by more than 63,000 votes, about 113,000 to 49,000, in the smallest state in the country population-wise. That’s more than Trump lost by in the swing states of Georgia (10,000 votes), Arizona (10,000 votes) and Wisconsin (23,000 votes) combined in the 2020 presidential contest when turnout was more than 158 million nationally.
That is to say, whereas Trump barely lost in those three states — if he had won Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin in 2020 the Electoral College would have been tied 269 to 269 — Cheney was utterly annihilated in her party’s primary.
Which is little wonder. By serving as the ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, a committee that Republican leaders in the House have completely boycotted, plus being one of just 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump the second time, who was ultimately acquitted by the Senate, and then finally removed as GOP Conference Chair in the House, Cheney has been nearly universally rejected by Republicans, who still widely support Trump nationally.
Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, now Cheney has been defeated in her primary, and so was U.S. Reps. Jaime Herrera-Beutler (R-Wash.), Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) and Tom Rice (R-S.C.).
Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), John Katko (R-N.Y.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.) all opted to retire rather than face a primary challenge.
Only U.S. Reps. David Valadao (R-Calif.) and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), the latter of whom did beat a Trump-nominated candidate, remain on the ballot for the November Congressional midterms.
That builds on a pretty strong record in the party’s primaries this year, with Trump-backed candidates winning 183 out of 200 races in 2022, or 92 percent of GOP primaries, according to Ballotpedia.
This borne out by national polls, too. In the latest released Aug. 11, Trump leads the Republican primary by 38 points: 56 percent to 18 percent for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and 8 percent for former Vice President Mike Pence. That’s actually more than the 33 points he was leading DeSantis and Pence in the Aug. 2 Harvard-Harris GOP primary poll before the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Trump residence in Palm Beach, Fla., Mar-a-Lago, on Aug. 8 to seize documents that Trump had clearly declassified before he ever left office under his inherent Article II, Section 1 executive powers.
In an Aug. 15 statement on Truth Social, Trump optimistically suggested it might help the GOP to victory in the November midterms, predicting it may be actually boosting rather than diminishing his political fortunes, something that might emerge as an unintended consequence of the FBI raid., “Republicans could win many additional seats, both in the House & Senate, because of the strong backlash over the raid at Ma[r]-a-Lago. Polls are showing that some lost Republican territory over the last number of weeks has been more than made up with the unannounced Break In by the FBI, which should never have happened!”
The implication is that the FBI raid and the Justice Department’s now six-year operation against Trump that began when he was still a candidate in 2016 is actually helping Trump politically by consolidating Republican support around him for a 2024 bid, with obvious ramifications for those Trump-backed candidates in the Nov. 2022 midterms, who now have a tailor-made pitch for across-the-board federal civil service, Justice Department and intelligence reforms.
But likely only if Republican leaders in Washington, D.C. including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can find a way to push back on the Biden administration’s targeting of Trump, President Joe Biden’s top political opponent, if for no other reason then as an act self-preservation on behalf of any future Republican president. This is an intolerable breach of faith. The fact the White House says it was never briefed only makes it worse. Whatever happened to the unitary executive? The damage this is all doing to the Article II Presidency must not be discounted.
Republicans will also need to communicate effectively to independents and the few Democrats that care that they must not condone this dangerous, unilateral weaponization of federal police powers, whether by an administrative state department or if the President is doing it himself. The appeal must be to ensure these powers are never again used by one party against the other in this manner. To be long-lasting and sustainable, any reforms would obviously have to be bipartisan.
The message itself is simple: If the former president is not safe from these forces, then no one is. For Trump, it’s already too late.
Of course, he’s also right. The FBI’s criminalization of a clear exercise of presidential authority by Trump and threatening to imprison him changes almost everything we must now think about American politics. This is outrageous in a third world country, let alone in supposedly the most free country in the world.
The sooner Congressional Republicans realize and understand their fates in November are inextricably tied to Trump’s, the better.
