Sen. Dean Heller got a primary challenger last week, and this week he’s showing how craven and desperate he is. Perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian will challenge Heller in the Nevada Republican primary, prompting Heller to try to shore up his right flank:
In a short statement released to The Nevada Independent, Heller — who is up for reelection in 2018 and is being challenged in a primary by businessman Danny Tarkanian — confirmed that he indeed voted for the Republican nominee during the 2016 election after more than a year of vocal criticism toward the party’s nominee.
“Yes, I voted for Donald Trump,” he said in a statement texted to a reporter.
Previously, Heller had tried to look like he was standing up to Trump by talking like a critic while actually voting with Trump 90 percent of the time.
Most notably, he told reporters in October 2016 that he was 99 percent certain he would oppose the Republican nominee for president.
Heller also donated campaign donations from Trump to charity in 2015, and said during the campaign he was “vehemently opposed” to Trump, whom he described as a man that “denigrates human beings.”
Heller is particularly vulnerable because he angered voters of all political stripes during the Senate’s healthcare fight, first claiming he was opposed to Trumpcare and then voting for it in the end. It was exactly the kind of performance you get from a guy who only admits to having voted for his party’s president the week after he gets a primary challenger. Weak, spineless, dishonest, unprincipled.
Can you chip in $1 to each of the Democratic nominee funds targeting Dean Heller and other Senate Republicans?