GOP Summer of Chaos: Infighting Continues Escalating in GOP Senate Primaries

This week, Senate Republicans’ “intraparty rifts that defined the 2022 cycle and contributed to the GOP’s loss[es]” were on full display in races across the map.

• In Montana, Matt Rosendale — who is “plotting a Senate comeback bid” — railed against Tim Sheehy’s candidacy as an “attempt by McConnell and the DC cartel to dismiss the voters of Montana,” adding that “Montanans don’t take orders from Washington.” Rosendale is not alone in his criticism: “the state’s conservatives questioned” Sheehy’s candidacy, and “grassroots Montana conservatives are frustrated with what they perceive as unwelcome outside influence attempting to sway the primary race.”
  

• In Ohio, GOP candidates “are in attack mode:” Bernie Moreno criticized Frank LaRose for “screw[ing] up the messaging” on Issue 1 after LaRose admitted the amendment was “100% about abortion,” and in response, LaRose shot back at Moreno. Moreno is not alone in his criticism: LaRose was booed and mocked while campaigning for Issue 1, and polling shows LaRose’s amendment is widely unpopular among Ohio voters.

In West Virginia, Jim Justice endorsed Trump’s 2024 campaign, and Alex Mooney was quick to attack Justice as a “political opportunist” and an “ANTI-TRUMP candidate” citing Justice’s refusal to vote for Trump in 2016. Mooney added that he endorsed Trump 8 months ago. Mooney also said “West Virginians deserve better” than Justice, citing recent reporting detailing Justice’s “long-standing pattern of behavior” of leaving “bills left unpaid.”

• In Nevada, Republicans are getting ready to “square off” in a “crowded” “primary brawl” that’s getting more “chao[tic]” by the day: new reporting details that former Trump-appointed Ambassador Jeffrey Ross Gunter is expected to enter the primary soon, joining McConnell-backed candidate Sam Brown and “vocal election denier and Trump ally” Jim Marchant. The primary contenders have wasted no time attacking each other: “Marchant and his supporters were quick to label [Brown] a ‘handpicked’ agent of Mitch McConnell and the Republican ‘establishment,’” and Gunter called Brown a “serial election loser” and “deep state” member who is “trying to dance around the idea of Donald Trump.” 

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