It’s been less than two weeks since Congressmen Peter Meyer, Tom Rice, and Liz Cheney have impeached almost everyone in the Republican Party and impeached President Donald Trump, but in their hometown. The repulsion is already rising.
In Michigan, the challenger to Mr. Meyer was boosted when Steve Bannon advertised him in a podcast.
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In South Carolina, local Republicans have been repeatedly called to urge Mr Rice to oppose him, and he can’t keep his phone charging.
And in Wyoming, when state senator Dick Cheney announced a major campaign against her, she was a Republican third party member “out of contact” with her home state.
The ten Republicans who voted for impeachment are already faced with a fleet of major challengers, blame, and other blame from local Republican organizations. This shows that the battle for Mr. Trump plays a decisive role in shaping the party’s direction. Next two years.
“Trump may be gone, but trumpism is guaranteed to be virtually part of the 2022 election,” said Ken Spain, a former senior official of the National Republican Parliamentary Commission. “Tectonic plates have moved within the Republican Party and members are now trying to find a way to straddle the fault line.”
The impeachment vote is not only designed as a test of loyalty to Mr. Trump, but has also given incumbents to Democrats such as Congressman Nancy Pelosi, the central bogey woman of the Republican Congressional campaign for over a decade. It is also used to tie. Mixing result.
Some Republican executives in Washington, such as Senator Mitch McConnell, who is now a minority leader, have begun trying to create some distance between the party and Mr. Trump, but Republican voters are political. There are few signs of interest in divorce.
Almost all Republicans in the House of Representatives who have voted to impeach Mr. Trump have already been formally accused by the local branch of the GOP, faced with upcoming condemnation votes, or publicly scolded by the local leader. National efforts to punish these politicians provide a clear example of the sector that divides the party locked out of power.
In this 2019 file photo, US Congressman Tom Rice is discussing with a student in Florence, South Carolina.
Already in South Carolina, Republicans are trying to challenge Mr. Rice, a conservative in a Trump-friendly district. His impeachment vote shocked his colleagues and was criticized by the South Carolina Republican Chairman.
“I’m 100% confident that Tom Rice will be prime minister,” said Ken Richardson, chairman of the Board of Education in Holly County, South Carolina, who is devoted to confronting Rice himself. Said. He said he had to recharge his phone three times a day to catch up with the non-stop phone and text that encouraged him to take part in the race.
“I don’t know what he was thinking. I’m sure he’s the reason he voted in his own way,” Richardson added. “If there was a country of cards, we live in a country of cards.”
Another potential challenger to Rice, the former mayor of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, believes Trump is a legitimate winner of the 2020 elections (he isn’t). Resignation saying he had collected hundreds of signatures on his petition for Mr. Rice.
“The president didn’t instigate it,” McBride said of the January 6 riots at the Capitol. “With the idea that the impeachment trial would go to the Senate, Tom Rice laid the foundation for it to continue.”
Michigan businessman and Army veteran Tom Norton, who lost Major to the 2020 Primary, asked lawmakers to give him a head-up on the day he resolved to blame Trump. Said he called. Norton immediately submitted documents to Meyer in 2022 to launch another campaign.
Norton said he believed he had mistakenly accused Trump of inciting the riots.
“We have a lot of passionate people and we can’t control everyone,” he said, anxiety that occurred mostly alongside peaceful protests against racial justice last year. Exaggerated pockets. “Blaming President Trump is the same as blaming Kamala Harris and Joe Biden for all the riots that Antifa made last summer.”
Peter Meijer (R) joined Mike Pence, then Vice President of the United States, at a campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in October 2020.
John Katko, the first Republican to support the impeachment, is one of the few Republicans to represent the Democratic district. Some Republicans in his district resented his vote.
“‘Not very happy’ is probably the most political way to say,” said Fred Beardsley, chairman of the Oswego County Republican Commission. “We are very angry. I am terribly upset.”
“I think Mr. Katoko has crossed the line,” he continued. “He double-crossed us.”
Katco and Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, Ohio Anthony Gonzalez, California David Valadao, Michigan Fred Upton and Maiger could lose their seats in this year’s constituency change process. All Republicans who voted for criticism and cheers from a state The shape of the district they might try to represent in 2022 has not yet been determined.
Congressman John Katko will attend the inauguration ceremony before Joe Biden becomes the 46th President of the United States on January 20.
Democratic state legislators in New York and Illinois could pull Katko and Kinzinger into a district represented by incumbent Republicans, blocking the path of the Trumpian rebels.
Conservative filmmaker Jean Koprowski, who applied to oppose Kinzinger, said he did so to start raising money, but before the official launch of the campaign, the Illinois General Assembly was in the House of Representatives. Waiting to redraw the constituency map.
The challenger to Ms. Cheney, who represents a single large district in Wyoming, does not face the same calculations. State Senator Anthony Bouchard announced an election campaign on Wednesday as President Joe Biden took office. By Thursday night, he was a guest on Newsmax TV and Fox News’ Laura Ingraham show.
“Liz Cheney’s long-standing opposition to President Trump and her recent vote on impeachment show how much she hasn’t been in contact with Wyoming,” Bushar said in a statement. “Wyoming taxpayers need a parliamentary voice to confront Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats and give them no cover.”
Many of the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment have survived challenging races so far. In California, Baradao won 13 percentage points in the 2016 race and Hillary Clinton scored 16 points in the district. Despite Biden winning the district in points, he won a seat in November after losing to the Democratic Party with less than 1,000 votes in 2018.
Indeed, many of those Republicans have strong personal brands at home, which can complicate the efforts of potential major challengers. For example, Gonzales was a star on the Ohio State University football team. And at least some leaders have said that politicians who voted for impeachment should be upset by the violence in the Capitol and should be spared.
“If he’s with us now, I’ll probably wave his hand and congratulate him on his conviction,” said Jim Dicke of the Republican National Committee in Ohio about Gonzales. .. “There’s a lot of criticism in the process, but if you’re an elected civil servant and you’re asked to vote, you can say” yes “or” no “or abstain. It is not allowed to say, “Wait, I don’t like the process.” “
Source: sbs.com.au