The challenger’s argument: Vos should do more to respond to former President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. Primary challengers like the one Vos faces next Tuesday are successfully targeting incumbent state lawmakers across the country, and Republicans are taking the brunt. With more than half of state legislative primaries completed, Republican incumbents have been losing this year at nearly twice the average rate of the past decade, according to data compiled for The Associated Press by the election tracker Ballotpedia. The base rate of loss for Democratic state legislators is similar to previous elections. Republican losses continued to mount on Tuesday as Trump-endorsed candidates unseated incumbent senators in Arizona and Michigan and a conservative challenger won Missouri’s assistant Senate majority leader. Although not technically an incumbent, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers also lost a bid for the state Senate after drawing criticism for refusing to help Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In many cases, Republican lawmakers have been defeated by challengers who present themselves as more conservative on election integrity, transgender policies, school instruction and other critical issues. “We have a far-right faction that is very unhappy with what is happening on the left. So if you’re not a die-hard fanatic who pushes every button, then you’re going to be in trouble,” said Arkansas state representative Craig Christiansen, who lost a Republican primary earlier this year. Although Christiansen considers himself “very conservative,” he garnered many challengers and failed to advance to a runoff. That came after she voted against Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto of legislation that would make Arkansas the first state to ban gender confirmation treatments for people under 18. Christiansen said he considered the legislation unconstitutional because it did not have an exception for youth already undergoing such treatments. Voss, who has served as speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly since 2013, has come under fire for not following through on a resolution condemning Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Trump backed his Republican challenger, Adam Steen, saying “Vosh refused to do anything to fix the mistakes that were made” in the 2020 election. Under pressure from Trump, Voss hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gambleman last year to investigate the election. Gableman said validating the election was “a practical impossibility.” Steen said he decided to challenge Vos for failing to pass legislation banning absentee ballots before the 2020 election and for not pushing for tougher consequences for voter fraud, among other things. “Conservatism as a whole has been dormant,” Steen said. “We lack vision and I think that vision is coming back.” Vos said Steen is running on hyperbole. He said Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, is the real obstacle for conservatives. He has never, for example, vetoed Republican bills that would have made absentee voting more difficult. “If we don’t get a Republican governor, (Steen) would have less success than I had,” Voss said. Vos is one of nine Wisconsin GOP lawmakers facing a primary. Although the challengers face an uphill battle, they could push the already conservative Legislature even further to the right if they score a few victories. This would mean a major change in a state that plays a crucial role in national elections. Twenty-seven states had held legislative primaries or caucuses before Tuesday. In these, at least 110 Republican incumbents and 33 Democrats were defeated. The Republican loss rate of 7.1% far exceeds the Democratic rate of 2.8%. It’s also well above the 3.6% average loss rate for Republican incumbents over the previous decade in those states, as well as the 4.4% Republican loss rate in those states during the last redistricting election cycle in 2012. Idaho voters led the way in ousting Republican incumbents, defeating 18 GOP lawmakers — or 30 percent of those seeking re-election — even as they chose GOP Gov. Brad Little over a Trump-backed challenger, who claimed he was not conservative enough. The losers include three lawmakers representing Kootenai County in northern Idaho, where a local Republican committee nominated conservative challengers against some incumbents after a lengthy vetting process. “People have kind of had it and are willing to get up and vote,” said Brent Regan, chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee. In Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds endorsed the primary challengers to four Republican state House members who had not supported her plan to provide taxpayer-funded scholarships to students to attend private schools. All four incumbents lost, including House Education Committee Chairman Dustin Hite. Even in some Democratic-dominated states, Republican primary voters have ousted incumbents deemed not conservative enough. Illinois state Rep. David Welter, one of nine Republican lawmakers kicked out of the chamber in February for ignoring COVID-19 protocols to wear masks, lost his June primary to a challenger who claimed the Welter was not quite a Republican. Challenger Jed Davis criticized Welter’s votes on the Equal Rights Amendment and a construction bill containing, among other things, a gas tax increase. Davis also mocked Welter’s connections to U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who became a GOP pariah after voting to impeach Trump and serving on the Democratic-led House panel investigating the attack on US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Welter once worked for Kinzinger’s campaign and received $32,500 in contributions since 2021 from Kinzinger-related committees. “People pegged me as more of a moderate,” Welter said. “Now I’m going to be replaced by someone who is really, really far right.” Welter believes redistricting after the 2020 census also played a role in his defeat by shifting the voters he represented. In states where party officials controlled redistricting, such as Illinois, maps established for the 2022 election often featured “increasingly extreme partisan cheerleaders,” according to a recent analysis of political scientists and data experts. When legislative districts lean more to the right or left, incumbents are more likely to face challengers and candidates who take more extreme positions are more likely to win, according to analysis in a forthcoming book by Saint Louis University political scientist Steven Rogers. Wisconsin’s legislative districts have had some of the largest pro-Republican tilts of any state over the past decade and have undergone only minor changes before this year’s election. Most of the challengers there are likely to lose, said University of Wisconsin-La Crosse political scientist Anthony Chergosky. But they could still make their mark by forcing incumbents to please the GOP primary voting base. “We’re just experiencing a real power struggle within the Republican Party right now,” he said. “President Trump is really doing his best by turning party activists against people like Robin Voss. Anyone in a position of power in the Republican Party is a target.”
Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Mo.
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