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It was just a few days after President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid when former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan did something unusual: He became the first Republican to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 candidacy. This did not go unnoticed by the state GOP.
On the contrary, the Georgia Republican Party responded to the news by launching an effort to expel Duncan from the party and ban him from ever again running as a GOP candidate. State party Chairman Josh McKoon added that Duncan will be “treated as a trespasser” if he seeks to attend any Georgia GOP event.
Donald Trump — the one Sen. JD Vance said is not a “vengeful guy” — celebrated the Georgia Republican Party’s moves against Duncan, adding in an online message, “We have to purge the Party of people that go against our Candidates, and make it harder for a popular Republican President to beat the Radical Left Lunatics. Geoff Duncan is a loser who is disintegrating on his own. Congratulations to Josh McKoon for purging our Party of Misfits and people that don’t want to see us succeed!”
As it turns out, Duncan isn’t the only Republican whom the former president is eager to “purge” from the party. Politico reported on one of today’s most notable congressional primaries:
Donald Trump and his allies have already purged eight of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The former president could add a ninth to the list on Tuesday. Rep. Dan Newhouse narrowly survived Trump’s attempt to take him out two years ago but faces perhaps a stiffer challenge this year.
Though Trump usually endorses his favorite candidate in a given race, in this instance the former president endorsed both of Newhouse’s intraparty challengers: failed Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley and Jerrod Sessler, a former race car driver. (Technically, he endorsed Sessler four months ago, then told his followers a few days ago that he supports Smiley, too.)
To be sure, Trump issues plenty of endorsements on a nearly daily basis, but this one stands out because of the motivation behind his campaign against the Washington incumbent.
Revisiting our earlier coverage, when Trump was impeached for his role in the Jan. 6 attack, it resulted in the most bipartisan impeachment vote in American history. Against a backdrop in which Republicans seemed eager to move on from their failed, defeated president, 10 GOP House members voted with the Democratic majority in favor of the impeachment resolution, and they had every reason to believe they’d be vindicated by history.
History, however, doesn’t elect members of Congress. Voters do.
As the defeated, scandal-plagued, failed former president reclaimed control over the party and party leaders such as former Speaker Kevin McCarthy scurried to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee, members of the Impeachment 10 came to realize that it didn’t matter that they were right. What mattered was that much of their radicalized political party wouldn’t tolerate their heresy, which would overshadow other parts of their careers in public service.
Some saw the direction in the prevailing winds and decided to avoid the indignity of defeat. It’s why four members of the contingent — Ohio’s Anthony Gonzalez, New York’s John Katko, Illinois’ Adam Kinzinger and Michigan’s Fred Upton — announced their retirements before the 2022 primary season even began in earnest.
Four more thought they could maintain the trust of the voters who’d elected them in the first place:
- In South Carolina, Rep. Tom Rice was crushed in a primary, losing by more than 26 points to a Republican primary rival who insisted that the 2020 election was “rigged.” (It was not rigged.)
- In Michigan, Rep. Peter Meijer suffered a relatively narrow loss in a GOP primary to John Gibbs, perhaps best known for his “inflammatory, conspiratorial tweets.”
- In the state of Washington, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler lost her primary race to Joe Kent, who, according to an Associated Press report, has “connections to right-wing extremists, including a campaign consultant who was a member of the Proud Boys.”
- In Wyoming, Rep. Liz Cheney suffered a lopsided defeat to a Trump-backed lawyer who embraced the Big Lie.
It’s worth emphasizing for context that two of the four primary victors — Gibbs and Kent — ended up losing in the 2022 general elections, allowing Democrats to flip the seats from “red” to “blue.”
As for the other two members of the Impeachment 10, California’s David Valadao narrowly won his re-election bid in 2022, while Washington’s Dan Newhouse cruised to a landslide victory two years ago.
Trump has largely left Valadao alone, but the former president apparently believes Newhouse’s Washington district is conservative enough that he can help oust Newhouse, hand the nomination to an even more conservative rival, and the GOP can keep the seat. Watch this space.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.