{"id":24219,"date":"2022-11-21T09:46:26","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T17:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=24219"},"modified":"2022-11-21T09:46:28","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T17:46:28","slug":"the-dangers-of-democrats-boosting-maga-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/11\/21\/the-dangers-of-democrats-boosting-maga-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"THE DANGERS OF DEMOCRATS BOOSTING MAGA REPUBLICANS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a>BECOME A MEMBER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake speaks at a campaign rally in Queen Creek, Ariz., on Nov. 5, 2022.\u00a0Photo: Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The midterm strategy to fund Republican extremists in the primaries worked. Some fear it will strengthen the far right in the long term.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Akela Lacy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

November 19 2022, 4:00\u00a0a.m. (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IN JULY, just weeks before Arizona\u2019s gubernatorial primaries, the state Democratic Party sent an unusual press release. The message addressed a Republican primary, criticizing the outgoing GOP governor\u2019s handpicked successor, Karrin Taylor Robson, a real estate developer, in favor of her opponent, Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor backed by President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic release dryly thanked Robson \u201cfor her longtime financial support to help elect Democratic candidates up and down the ballot\u201d and described her past attacks against Lake for giving to Democrats as \u201chypocrisy.\u201d Arizona Democrats insisted they were not spending on the race, but the email was widely interpreted by mainstream media<\/a> and conservative outlets<\/a> as an attempt to interfere in the Republican primary to boost Lake. Two weeks later, Lake pulled further ahead<\/a> in polls and by early August won the Republican gubernatorial primary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week\u2019s election for governor was so close that it took almost a week to count enough ballots to call it. On Monday, Lake lost the general election to the Democratic candidate, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, by less than 1 percentage point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Democratic Party leadership should treat the rise of the authoritarian right as a real threat, not a talking point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arizona race was one of several key primaries in which national Democrats boosted Republicans<\/a> they deemed more or less unelectable<\/a> \u2014 candidates like Lake who denied the results of the 2020 presidential election. In what was anticipated to be a brutal midterm cycle, boosting extreme candidates could, the theory went<\/a>, help Democrats fare better<\/a> in general elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy ended up working in Arizona. Yet even in defeat, Lake and some of the other extremist Republican candidates still out-performed expectations. For some political observers who work with Democrats, the Arizona race shows how dangerous the strategy could be in emboldening anti-democratic sentiment and fueling polarization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Related<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

AOC and Mo Mitchell on the Midterms<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Democratic Party leadership should treat the rise of the authoritarian right as a real threat, not a talking point,\u201d Maurice Mitchell, national director for the Working Families Party, said in a statement to The Intercept. \u201cHelping MAGA Republicans to win their primaries was reckless and irresponsible. I hope it doesn\u2019t come back to bite us all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not every election where Democrats employed the strategy ended up as close as Arizona. The party scored resounding wins in governors\u2019 races in Maryland, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, as well as a crucial Senate election in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ken Snyder, a national Democratic campaign consultant with experience in Pennsylvania, who saw \u201csmashing success\u201d in Pennsylvania and Illinois, said, \u201cThis time the tactic worked more often than it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IN RACES WHERE the gambit clearly worked, Democrats spent millions boosting Republican candidates. Though Democrats didn\u2019t spend to back Lake in the Arizona race, they did pour more than $53 million<\/a> to back Republican primary candidates<\/a> in races<\/a> in California, Colorado<\/a>, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Nevada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic Governors Association spent $2 million to boost the primary campaign of Maryland Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox in a race that Democratic candidate Wes Moore<\/a> won handily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Pennsylvania, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro\u2019s campaign raised eyebrows<\/a> when it spent $840,000<\/a> on ads<\/a> highlighting Republican Doug Mastriano\u2019s extremism during the primary; Mastriano told<\/a> a local news outlet he\u2019d have to send Shapiro a thank-you card for the ad. Shapiro won the general election by 800,000 votes. In total, Pennsylvania Democrats spent at least $1.2 million boosting Mastriano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Majority PAC, a group aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., spent more than $3 million boosting the campaign of Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc in New Hampshire. Following a tight race, Bolduc, another 2020 election denier<\/a>, lost the race to Democratic incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in Illinois, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker used tens of millions from both his campaign and the Democratic Governors Association\u2019s coffers to help elevate far-right candidate Darren Bailey to the Republican nomination. Again, voters rejected Bailey and went heavily for Pritzker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Concerns over the high-dollar amounts were twofold. First, the extraordinary financial cost<\/a> of backing extremist Republicans came as other struggling Democratic candidates<\/a> have said they were spurned<\/a> after requesting support from the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, some Democrats worried that the push to boost far-right Republicans might alienate the party\u2019s donors. \u201cHistorically, this has been a well-known tactic with minimal repercussions,\u201d said Lauren Tsuboyama, a Democratic strategist at the consultancy Blue State. Today, donors might not want to see their money going to extremist Republicans: \u201cNow, more than ever, voters \u2014 especially Democratic voters \u2014 are paying closer attention to where their hard-earned donations are being spent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANOTHER POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE for Democrats could have been their chosen MAGA Republican candidates being defeated in their primaries. \u201cIt looks like you\u2019re running against the person you feared the most,\u201d said Snyder, the Democratic consultant, noting that the more moderate GOP member would have a baked-in centrist narrative. That\u2019s not how it played out, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Colorado, Democrats put just under $6 million into more extreme Republican candidates who lost primary races for governor<\/a>, Senate<\/a>, and Congress<\/a>. Democrats nonetheless beat the more moderate Republicans in all three races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Michigan\u2019s 3rd Congressional District, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party fundraising organ, spent half a million dollars on ads boosting a Trump-backed candidate. The incumbent Republican, who had voted to impeach Trump last year, lost the August primary by 3 points, but Democratic candidate Hillary Scholten went on to win the race by 13 points anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cForegrounding Republican extremism wins Democrats elections. When you\u2019re devising campaigns, a really risky way to do that is by playing in those Republican primaries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a party that\u2019s had trouble crafting a coherent message around its achievements under President Joe Biden, Republican candidates touting election denials seem to have worked as an effective foil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile there is cognitive dissonance in this strategy,\u201d said Alyssa Cass, a Democratic strategist who worked on Democratic candidate Pat Ryan\u2019s competitive race<\/a> in New York\u2019s 18th District<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m not someone that shared the hand-wringing over it initially.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conventional wisdom leading up to the election \u2014 including polling, guidance, and general advice for Democratic strategists \u2014 was that messaging to voters that democracy was under threat wasn\u2019t effective, Cass said. \u201cThis election shows that that was really wrong,\u201d she said. \u201cForegrounding Republican extremism wins Democrats elections. When you\u2019re devising campaigns, a really risky way to do that is by playing in those Republican primaries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few hundred or a thousand votes the other way could have delivered a different outcome, Cass said, but the particularly grim political stakes this cycle played in Democrats\u2019 favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the dangers of stoking extremism and polarization, Snyder said, should be the responsibility of Republicans: \u201cWhose fault is it when a radical extremist wins a Republican primary?\u201d he asked. \u201cI think national Republican leaders need to look in the mirror for having created this dynamic in which candidates with extreme radical views can win their primaries to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BECOME A MEMBER Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake speaks at a campaign rally in Queen Creek, Ariz., on Nov. 5, 2022.\u00a0Photo: Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images The midterm strategy to fund Republican extremists in the primaries worked. Some fear it will strengthen the far right in the long term. Akela Lacy… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24220,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24219\/revisions\/24220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}