Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson once famously quipped about FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, "It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in," and that's one lesson the Republican establishment may be about to learn firsthand following the removal Steve Bannon, the white supremacist chief of Breitbart News, as Donald Trump's top political strategist. Politico reports that the ousted Bannon is now plotting to target several Republican senators in primaries from the nativist right in coordination with billionaire mega-donor Robert Mercer, who has the capability to pour millions into super PAC attack ads.
Bannon’s target list reportedly includes four senators: Arizona’s Jeff Flake, Mississippi’s Roger Wicker, Nevada’s Dean Heller, and Tennessee’s Bob Corker. And we already know that Bannon has one sitting senator in his sights: He’s been pushing his allies to aid former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, who’s led appointed Sen. Luther Strange in all the polls of this month’s GOP primary runoff for the special election for the seat once held by Jeff Sessions. Strange has the steadfast support of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and what remains of the party establishment, but Strange has received little encouragement from the White House in the runoff despite earning Trump’s surprise endorsement in the first round.
Flake and Heller, meanwhile, already face major primary foes, with some polls showing them highly vulnerable in next year's primaries, while Mercer has previously given $300,000 to a super PAC backing former state Sen. Kelli Ward against Flake. According to Politico, Bannon has recently thrown his full support to Heller's challenger Danny Tarkanian, a failed businessman who has run and lost five campaigns yet keeps winning GOP primaries thanks to his unrelenting conservatism and famous family name. While a Bannon endorsement alone might not carry much weight with primary voters, his white supremacist media empire has the ability to influence and energize the same anti-immigrant primary fringe that helped Trump win the GOP presidential primary.
However, Heller is not without powerful allies of his own, as Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn gave Heller his full backing at a recent GOP fundraiser. Wynn is a billionaire who became Republican National Committee finance chairman after Trump's election, meaning Heller's fundraising could benefit greatly both from Wynn's direct contributions and broader connections among wealthy GOP donors.
Wicker and Corker have thus far escaped the brunt of Trumpist wrath, but that may soon change. Neo-Confederate state Sen. Chris McDaniel almost knocked off longtime Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi's Republican primary in 2014, and McDaniel said back in March that he was thinking about challenging Wicker next year. A former conservative radio host, McDaniel's long history of racism makes him a natural fit for the potential support of Bannon and his network.
As for neighboring Tennessee, Corker had at one time been considered an ally of Trump and was even in the running to become secretary of state earlier this year. However, several Tennessee Republicans have had an eye on challenging Corker next year, and his recent comments questioning Trump's fitness to be president will only serve to alienate him from the GOP base. Corker may sense this growing chasm himself: He recently told CNN that he "has not decided” whether or not to seek a third term in 2018. But Corker is nevertheless taking steps to run just in case, and he had a hefty $6.6 million in cash-on-hand at the beginning of July.
If Bannon and Mercer do indeed go all-out to wage war against the Senate GOP establishment, Democrats could be major beneficiaries. Flake and Heller already face the prospect of competitive general elections, meaning either could lose re-election even if they end up winning renomination. Of course, if 2016 taught us anything, it’s that even a fringe hardliner can still prevail in a general election. However, Democrats would almost certainly have a better shot at beating flawed extremist insurgents than more mainstream incumbents in a general election.
After Flake and Heller, though, Democrats have few opportunities to go on offense in 2018, since they’ve picked up seats the last three times this class of senators has gone before voters (in 2012, 2006, and 2000). So even if the Democratic caucus successfully holds all 25 of its seats up next year—an incredibly tall task, given than 10 Democrats are seeking re-election in Trump states—Team Blue would still need to capture three Republican-held seats to flip the Senate.
Still, Bannon could make things more interesting elsewhere. Mississippi and Tennessee should be nobody's idea of swing states, but if Bannon goes full-tilt at the establishment, it will suck the establishment’s resources away from more competitive general elections elsewhere. And as we saw in 2012, when GOP Senate candidates could not stop saying awful things about rape, a slate of Bannon-backed extremists could prove deleterious to the Republican brand nationwide.