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The Republican Main Street Partnership, a group that supports centrist-leaning House Republicans, plans to spend $500,000 to unseat far-right Rep. Bob Good from Virginia, taking an unusually strong push to oust a sitting Republican. Demonstrate your strengths. of parliament.
This move is notable not only because, by providing arms through campaigns, the group is entering itself into a kind of internal struggle against incumbents that it normally avoids. The party is also supporting a candidate, former Navy SEAL and election denier John J. McGuire, who has pledged allegiance to former President Donald J. What is also shocking is that he promises to bring a sense of perspective. He bears little resemblance to the moderate Republicans the Main Street Partnership was founded to support.
The nonprofit, which operates out of a townhouse a few blocks from the Capitol, recruits vulnerable Republicans representing political battlegrounds, including moderate Republicans with more moderate positions on social issues. For many years, we have been raising and spending money to support them. The Capitol headquarters serves as something of a counterweight to the Conservative Partnership, which operates nearby as a right-wing center.
But as the Republican Party pivoted to the far right and wiped out a once-huge and influential centrist bloc, the Main Street Partnership also shed its “moderate” label and changed the nature of its mission. . The group has recently expanded its membership even further to include more conservatives and Republican rebels more intent on disrupting legislative work and stoking divisions in the party than on centrism or bipartisanship. They are starting to focus on excluding people from Congress.
The group’s decision to jump into Republican primaries in Virginia’s heavily Republican districts is against lawmakers who have played a major role in paralyzing the House and making it difficult for the Republican majority to govern. It shows how the group intends to launch attacks. This means promoting far-right candidates that they would never have supported in the past.
“We are a group of 90 members right now who just want to get things done,” Main Street Partnership President Sarah Chamberlain said. He said the group identified Goode as its first target this election year because of his unique set of vulnerabilities.
The most obvious of these was that Mr. Good made the politically fateful mistake of endorsing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis early in the Republican presidential primary, alienating Mr. Trump.
Trump’s campaign manager, Chris Lacivita, told Cardinal News in January that “if his relationship with Bob Good ends, he will no longer be elected.” The feud has allowed the Main Street Partnership to target Mr. Good without fear of starting a proxy war with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
“You can’t have someone like that in Congress. He’s not willing to work together to get things done,” Chamberlain said of Goode and his far-right brethren in the House. “All they want to do is sabotage everything, even their own.”
The move comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson is actively admonishing Republican lawmakers for targeting fellow Republicans in the upcoming election and trying with little success to force rank-and-file members to act as a more united team. It was held inside.
The Republican Main Street Partnership has attempted to oust an incumbent through its campaign arm only once in 2020, defeating former Iowa Rep. Steve King, who became a pariah in the party after a series of racist comments. Something happened.
This year, the group’s campaign standard-bearer, Save Main Street, also hopes to field candidates that leaders believe will work to achieve conservative policy outcomes. He has spent $2.5 million in the nearly open Republican primary.
The group’s leaders hope the effort will help save the Republican Party from a future collapse like the one experienced in the House during this legislative session. That includes two long and chaotic races for speaker, and Republicans constantly siding with Democrats to block their own party’s legislation. Go to the floor to vote.
But the decision to spend heavily on incumbents also highlights how divided Congressional Republicans have become as the party moves to the right.
Good, who was elected chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus in December, was one of eight Republicans who voted to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker last fall. He has sought to freeze the House floor by blocking his procedural votes in protest of his own party’s leadership. He helped derail a Republican-authored spending bill and said “most Americans won’t be lonely” even if the government shuts down.
His challenger, Virginia Sen. McGuire, is also from the far right. He attended the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, hosted a screening of the documentary “2000 Mules,” which debunked the 2020 election fraud conspiracy theory, and said Good accused of “abandoning” .Trump.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a right-wing Republican from Georgia, is also a supporter.
In explaining the group’s decision to support McGuire, Chamberlain said the group’s focus was now on removing rioters from Congress rather than elevating the ranks of centrist Republicans, which was once its primary mission. He has made it clear that he is interested in doing so.
“Supporting Trump or where he falls on the conservative spectrum has no bearing on our decision-making,” Chamberlain said. “John McGuire is committed to delivering conservative solutions, not burning down the House of Commons.”
Mr McGuire criticized Mr Goode’s vote to expel Mr McCarthy, saying he had no time for “toxic infighting that paralyzes our party and our country”.
Mr. Good’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s not yet clear whether Main Street Partnership will target other Republican incumbents. Chamberlain said he was considering targeting right-wing Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, who is running in a crowded primary to replace Rep. Ken Buck, who is scheduled to leave Congress next week.
For now, it would be too expensive to vacate the seat in a race where Boebert, who currently represents a more competitive district in western Colorado, has Trump’s support and is still campaigning. He said he had made the decision. You have a cash advantage over other candidates.
But Chamberlain said he wants his organization to be a safe haven for Republicans who want to focus on governing at a time when the party is divided and many members are fed up with the dysfunction in Congress. .
On Tuesday, Buck, a staunch conservative who was one of eight Republicans who voted to expel McCarthy, announced his decision to shorten his final term in Congress, telling reporters: There is no need to spend any more time here. ”
Some companies continue to hold out hope for a more functional future. New members of the Main Street Partnership include Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, a former senior official in the Trump administration. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota; Buddy Carter of Georgia; and Andy Barr of Kentucky.
The organization has also carried out its own purge. Most recently, he voted to expel Mr. McCarthy last year and expelled South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who took a far-right turn toward Trumpism in an effort to preserve her own political future.
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