State Republicans avoid lawmakers critical of Trump and his big lie | Republicans

Across the United States, Republican state officials are taking unprecedented steps to deter or even purge criticism of Donald Trump and promote the former president’s potential allies.

These efforts are the latest sign of Trump’s continued stranglehold on areas of the Republican Party that are generally neutral and reflect his intense popularity with a large slice of the Republican base, despite his scandalous four years in power and his defeat. against Joe Biden in 2020.

Traditionally, state Republican parties have tried to avoid favoritism in primaries and in party battles. The mission of these groups and their members is generally to help get Republicans elected, regardless of which sect of the party they align with.

In Oklahoma, the state Republican Party chairman endorsed a challenger to incumbent Republican Senator James Lankford over Lankford’s last-minute decision not to oppose the 2020 presidential election results January 6th.

In Wyoming, a Republican Party official called on members of Congress to take a look at MP Liz Cheney’s top challengers, one of Trump’s favorite obsessions since leaving office.

In Alaska, the state’s Republican Party is backing Kelly Tshibaka, the former administration commissioner, to take Lisa Murkowski’s seat in the Senate about a month after Trump himself approved Tshibaka. Some of Tshibaka’s consultants are high-ranking veterans of Trump’s unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign.

These latest moves are a continuation of a trend of activism among state GOP officials to side with Trump and despise elected officials and prominent Republicans – some of whom are otherwise popular – that upset Trump. The Republican parties in Arizona, Illinois, Maine and Ohio have also censored party members who split from Trump during the certification of election results.

But grassroots Republican officials who are actively working to tip the scales to appease the whims of a single-term president are blazing new trails.

“We are now in a period with a former president who has grievances against his own party and he is using his influence, his megaphone and his power to try to get revenge on these individuals. And in some states where Trump is popular or where an established politician has taken a deeply unpopular political stance, you see some internal opposition, ”said Matt Mackowiak, chairman of the Travis County, Texas GOP.

He added: “I think we live in a time when party officials don’t feel obligated to support every party member, especially if they’ve taken a different direction on a fairly important issue. “

Suspicions of candidate loyalty within the party infrastructure are not unknown or unique to the Republican Party. During the last open race for the presidency of the Democratic National Committee in 2017, Democratic activists sometimes speculated that Barack Obama or other establishment party presidents were subtly trying to support and discourage certain candidates. others. But these suspicions only extended so far.

“There is little historical precedent for party presidents intervening in the primaries,” said Matt Moore, a former Republican chairman of South Carolina. “Usually, great deference is given not only to elected officials, but also to state committees that elect presidents. “

The impact of the aid provided by these members of the state’s Republican Party is unclear.

Alaska Senator Murkowski, for example, has survived severe challenges from the Tories in the past and this fiscal quarter has passed Tshibaka – a sign that the chances of winning for the Trump-backed main challenger are not guaranteed. In Wyoming, Cheney faces a handful of challengers who could split the anti-Cheney vote.

Moore argued that involving officials in Trump’s efforts to undermine his opponents could actually undermine state parties.

“I would say it actually weakens the party in the long run. It reduces the credibility of presidents, especially when they are backing bonkers candidates against serious US senators, ”Moore said. “The great success of the party over the past decade has been the improvement of infrastructure, so when sitting US senators are not playing with the party, it reduces the quality of infrastructure – like field programs, data, etc. “

Even more unusual, these internal Republican Party conflicts have little to do with a wide range of political disagreements. Instead, it often comes down to whether a candidate backed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent.

“What happened is historically strange,” Moore said. “Over the years, we have seen senators attacked by party presidents or by the party in general, but never for a vote. It’s very strange.”

It is now clear that the outgoing Republicans who crossed paths with Trump did so at their peril. In Georgia, for example, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top election official and Republican, faces a major challenge from Congressman Jody Hice after refusing to help Trump undermine the results. of the 2020 elections.

Across the country, Republicans are realizing that their greatest electoral dangers do not necessarily come from a strong Democratic opponent, but from standing alongside Trump, even though he is not in power.

“This is a 100% purity test here,” said Landon Brown, representative for the state of Wyoming.

The state party of Wyoming has passed regulations prohibiting the state party from giving money to a legislator unless the legislator votes in accordance with the Wyoming Republican Party platform 80 percent of the time, a Brown said. The Wyoming party gives lawmakers scorecards and lets them know if they fail. Brown summed up the party’s ideology: “If you’re not aligned with Trump, you’re not a Republican.