After Donald Trump handily guided Senate Republicans to a one-seat loss in a midterm cycle where they were expected to gain, the Senate GOP conference has a one-man plan to right the ship in 2024: Sen. Steve Daines of Montana.
Daines is taking over as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee after Sen. Rick Scott of Florida sided with Trump against Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last cycle. It did not go well, though McConnell certainly shares plenty of blame for Republicans' midterm failures.
But now Senate Republicans view Daines, according to The Washington Post, as the guy who can bridge all divides, cure what ails Republicans, and restore to them to glory.
But much like the conservative plan to stop Trump from winning the '24 nomination, it amounts to a lot of wishful thinking more than anything.
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Here's McConnell guy Steven Law, who heads the McConnell-aligned Super PAC, effectively making the sale to serious 'establishment' types that everything is going to be alright this cycle because Daines.
“He has this rare ability to navigate all the different nooks and crannies of the Republican party from Trumpworld to Club for Growth to Leader McConnell and others,” explained Steven Law, head of the Senate Leadership Fund, which dropped hundreds of millions of dollars on the 2022 primaries to no good end. “He’s able to establish trust in all these different directions that helps him when he’s recruiting to assess what kinds of candidates he can effectively promote to all those different aspects of the party.”
Daines, while he's mainly McConnell guy, is supposedly tight with Donald Trump Jr. while also holding MAGA-esque right-wing views on a personal level.
“When Steve was elected in 2014 his personal views were probably some of the furthest right in the Senate,” said Katie Miller, a former Daines staffer who is now married to Trump aide and white nationalist Stephen Miller.
Some people close to Trump may have nice things to say, but bottom line, McConnell and his allies—including Daines—plan to play a much bigger and likely more confrontational role in the upcoming GOP primaries. The ‘24 Senate map is even better for Republicans than the midterm map was—it’s almost a no-miss opportunity. But really anything’s possible when Trump’s weighing you down.
If Trump were any normal human, he might be embarrassed by the epic losses he engineered in the midterms. Instead, he will most certainly be throwing his considerable weight around all over again, even if he's indicted.
“How do you avoid having Trump and Trumpism get in the way of good candidates who can win races?” offered Michael Steele, Never-Trumper and former chair of the Republican National Committee.
Maybe—just maybe—Daines can manage to somewhat contain the blood in the water, but really, when Trump's involved, can anyone contain it enough to be meaningful?
In fact, even within that article, Sen. Scott, the former NRSC chair, piped in with a disapproving take.
“I believe that people in those states ought to pick who their senators are,” he said. “I don’t believe Washington ought to be picking them.”
And by "people," what we are really talking about are the most activist Republicans who show up to vote in primaries—in other words, we are largely talking about Trumpers.
For his part, Daines told the Post his plan to deescalate internal party conflict was "to be direct about where I stand on issues and potential candidates” as the Senate GOP puts its thumb on the scale in specific primaries. “Folks tend to appreciate that honesty even if there are disagreements,” Daines wrote.
Oh, absolutely, no one but no one appreciates honesty more than Trump.
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