Comment A final round of primaries for state and federal offices begins Tuesday, setting the stage for a six-week battle within a divided Republican Party that pits candidates loyal to former President Donald Trump and his false election claims against opponents who want to overcome them. the battles in the fall midterm elections. Two gubernatorial candidates in Arizona and Wisconsin backed by Trump will face off this month against those endorsed by former Vice President Mike Pence, who split with Trump after he refused pressure to throw out the results of the 2020 presidential race. Four members of Congress who voted to impeach Trump after his supporters stormed the US Capitol are also trying to defeat challengers who embrace Trump’s false claims that he won. And an Arizona lawmaker who has led calls to “devalidate” the 2020 results and wants to ban the use of voting machines may win the GOP nomination on Tuesday to oversee elections in a key 2024 battleground. With less than 100 days to go until November’s midterm elections, lingering rifts in past elections will come into focus as some Republicans hope to focus on unifying concerns like inflation to regain control of Congress. Trying to ride out these economic headwinds and low approval ratings for President Biden, Democrats argue that the GOP candidates — and their campaigns against the democratic process itself — will prove too extreme for voters in the general election. Some Republicans also worry about the emergence of divisive candidates in the coming weeks. Tuesday’s contests in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state could elevate more Republicans who, like Trump, have badly undermined credibility in the election and cast themselves as populist fighters not only against Democrats but and the GOP establishment. “I think what will become clear here in the next few weeks is, have the insane really taken over the asylum? … Are you going to see election truthers take over the voting machinery up and down the ballot?” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic consultant. “This will present the American people with a real choice to make that will be very stark.” In many races, the GOP candidates diverge on tone, not policy. “Everybody is pro-gun, pro-life, pro-borders, pro-low taxes, pro-low regulation. The race is not about what we stand for, it’s about who we are,” said Stan Barnes, a former senator and Arizona GOP strategist — shaping up to be “a perfect political science experiment for the future of the Republican Party.“ In Arizona, Republican candidates for Senate, governor, attorney general and secretary of state have all campaigned heavily to align themselves with Trump while pushing his false narrative for the 2020 election. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), co-chairman of the Republican Governors Association, has thrown his weight behind a more traditional conservative candidate for governor, developer Karrin Taylor Robson, as well as a secretary of state candidate, Beau Lane, who acknowledges that Biden won the 2020. Pence, a friend and ally of Ducey, also endorsed Taylor Robson over Trump’s favored candidate, former TV host Carrie Lake. Lake said she would not have confirmed a Biden victory — as Ducey did — and has already claimed that “there is some stealing going on” in the 2022 election without providing evidence. In split-screen campaign events last month, Trump and Pence stumped for their running mate on the same Friday as both consider their 2024 presidential bid. A similar scene played out this spring in Georgia, where Trump enlisted former Sen. David Perdue to challenge onetime ally Gov. Brian Kemp (D) over his decision to certify Trump’s election loss. Kemp won in a landslide with Pence’s support. But the Arizona governor’s race appears to be much more competitive. Trump’s endorsements in the 2022 Republican primary In Missouri, Trump on Monday promised a last-minute endorsement in the Senate primary — only to throw his lot behind “Eric” without specifying a last name, effectively leaving the door open to either Eric Greitens or Gen. State’s Attorney Eric Schmidt. who lobbied for his support. Greitens resigned from the governor’s office in scandal and, as a Senate candidate, denied new allegations of abuse by his ex-wife — fueling Republican fears that he could jeopardize an otherwise safe seat and lead to an establishment-led effort to defeat him. In Arizona, state lawmaker Mark Finchem is running for secretary of state — part of an official slate of no-choice candidates seeking oversight of the 2024 ballot. Other members of that coalition include Jim Marchant, who won the Republican nomination for secretary of state in Nevada. and Kristina Karamo, the GOP pick for Michigan secretary of state. Finchem sought to overturn Arizona’s popular and established vote-by-mail system and was photographed near the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the building to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election. He recently embraced support by Andrew Torba, the founder of a far-right social networking site, who said that non-Christians are not real conservatives. Republicans have warned against writing off candidates like Finchem and Lake in the general election, as GOP candidates capitalize on a favorable political climate nationally. “My Democratic friends in Arizona are asking [Lake and Finchem] and they think those are the candidates they want to run against,” said Barnes, the GOP strategist. “But I think they might regret it.” Democrats, meanwhile, have pursued a controversial strategy in some races of seeking to elevate GOP campaigns they see as more extreme, and therefore more winnable, in November. In Michigan, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent $435,000 on ads boosting a challenger who denied the election to Rep. Peter Meijer, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021. He’s in a tight race Tuesday with John Gibbs. former Trump administration official. In Washington state, Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R) and Dan Newhouse (R) also hope Tuesday to fend off critics of their impeachment votes. a top-two, all-party primary system could ease their way. Some Republicans see incumbents who have broken with Trump as their most electable candidates in the fall, and Tuesday could intensify criticism that Trump has hurt the party’s chances with his endorsements. Some of his handpicked candidates are running in critical swing-state races, such as the Pennsylvania Senate contest. Jason Roe, a strategist and former executive director of the Michigan GOP, said the party’s growing interest in trying to flip a Democratic-leaning Washington state Senate seat underscores the struggles of their candidates in swing states. “It doesn’t give you a lot of confidence that we’re holding the best hand right now,” he said with a laugh. Michigan’s state legislative primary will also pit some of Trump’s favored candidates against those backed by a former cabinet member and major GOP donor, Betsy DeVos, as well as one of the GOP’s most vocal critics: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), who also voted for impeachment. Jase Bolger, former GOP chairman for the Michigan House of Representatives, predicted the party would rally behind its candidates despite the infighting. It recalled the party’s divisions in 2010, when Republicans overthrew the House of Representatives after members of the conservative “tea party” movement turned against the GOP establishment. “Again, those differences, those races paled in comparison to the differences in the general election,” Bolger said. Trump and Pence have endorsed different candidates in Wisconsin’s August 9 GOP primary. Trump’s pick, Tim Michels, a construction executive, has perpetuated the lie that widespread voter fraud cost Trump the election, though Michels declined to say whether he would support a Democratic effort in the state legislature to retroactively endorsing Biden’s 2020 victory, saying recently that it was not a “priority.” Michels will face former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who won Pence’s endorsement last week, and state Rep. Tim Ramthun in next week’s primary. Kleefisch also disputed the 2020 results, but called it impossible to overturn Wisconsin’s results. The winner will face Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who is currently standing in the way of GOP legislative ambitions, creating one of the most high-stakes gubernatorial races in the country. Wisconsin Democrats will also decide who will face GOP Sen. Ron Johnson in November. Last week, several candidates in a crowded Democratic primary dropped out, effectively clearing the way for Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes to win the party’s nomination. Next week there are dramatic matchups in Wyoming and Alaska. Of all the Republicans up for re-election this year, it’s likely that none Trump wants to win more than Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Since the deadly riots on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, Cheney has spoken out about Trump’s guilt, voted to impeach him and helped lead the House committee investigating the former president’s role in the attack. Cheney is up against Harriet Hageman, who has the full weight of Trump and his allies behind her. The Aug. 16 election will also test the stamina of Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska who was John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election. Palin is running to succeed the late Rep. Don Young, who died in March after almost 50 years in Parliament. Alaska voters will decide in a special election whether to send her to Washington to cover the final months of Young’s term and whether she should move beyond the primary to run for the seat in the November election. The last big day of the primaries…
