When the Senate Republicans' second-in-command was asked last month about the prospect of election deniers entering the race for an Arizona Senate seat, he was less than enthusiastic.
“Any candidate in ’24 that has, as their principal campaign theme, a stolen election, is probably going to have the same issues that some of the ’22 candidates had,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota told Politico.
But Thune didn't stop there. "It’s a swing state," Thune noted, "we need to have a good Republican nominee, obviously. You know, whoever gets in, I hope they focus on the future, not the past.”
The Arizona seat Republicans are hoping to flip is currently held by former Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who changed her party affiliation to independent. Progressive Rep. Ruben Gallego is challenging Sinema for the seat, a battle on the left that could presumably give Republicans a shot at wresting it from Democratic control. Yet two election deniers who fumbled their high-profile statewide races last year are eyeing a bid for the seat: Kari Lake and Blake Masters. And Thune’s message from on-high in Washington was not well-received by Grand Canyon State MAGA enthusiasts.
Caroline Wren, a senior adviser to Lake, blasted Thune as “everything wrong with the Republican establishment.” The “Washington cartel,” she continued, is “signaling that they’re willing to hand an Arizona Senate seat to the radical left.”
The struggle is real, folks, and the key problem for the GOP's Washington 'cartel' is that their base doesn't give a hoot about policy and how it impacts their chances for victory. Republican primary voters are consumed by niche culture war battles that don't win over statewide majorities in a general election, even in a midterm cycle that should have heavily favored Republican candidates.
A CBS News poll released this week found the top concern for 85% of likely Republican primary voters is voting for a candidate who "challenges woke ideas." How many kitchen table conversations is that really monopolizing in a general election?
Another 61% of likely GOP primary voters said they prefer a candidate who "says Trump won in 2020"—the third most popular response.
The fourth most important consideration was a candidate who "makes liberals angry."
Only one of the top four responses—opposes any gun restrictions, at 66% support—is a legitimate policy consideration, and an unpopular one at that.
Even more unpopular: Half of Republican primary voters want a candidate who favors a national abortion ban. Yikes. A Daily Kos/Civiqs survey on abortion this week found that just 26% of registered voters believe abortion should be outlawed.
To sum up, virtually none of the issues prioritized by Republican primary voters stand any chance of winning over general election majorities in swing districts and battleground states.
That's a serious problem for Republicans heading into 2024, and edicts from old-school Republicans like Thune aren't going to solve it.
Dimitri of WarTranslated has been doing the essential work of translating hours of Russian and Ukrainian video and audio during the invasion of Ukraine. He joins Markos and Kerry from London to talk about how he began this work by sifting through various sources. He is one of the only people translating information for English-speaking audiences. Dimitri’s followed the war since the beginning and has watched the evolution of the language and dispatches as the war has progressed.