ICYMI: “Democrats Have Aggressively Seized” On “Carpetbagger” Republican Senate Candidates “In Several Of The Year’s Most Competitive Races” [NBC NEWS]

NBC News: Democrats are trying to turn the GOP’s 2024 Senate contenders into Dr. Oz
By Henry J. Gomez
February 15, 2024

• Democrats had a field day beating Mehmet Oz two years ago, relentlessly branding the TV doctor-turned-Senate candidate in Pennsylvania as a crudité-loving carpetbagger from New Jersey.

• Now, in another election cycle that could tip the balance of power in the chamber, Democrats are attempting to replicate — and expand — that strategy in several of the year’s most competitive races.

• Once again in Pennsylvania, Democrats have aggressively seized Republican front-runner Dave McCormick’s travels back-and-forth from his mansion in Connecticut. In Michigan, Democrats have pushed an unflattering narrative about former Rep. Mike Rogers, who returned [to Michigan] to run for Senate after relocating to Florida. And in Montana, they have nicknamed two GOP hopefuls as “Transplant Tim” and “Maryland Matt.”

• “Senate Republicans’ roster of candidates is full of carpetbaggers with tenuous ties to the states they’re running in,” said Tommy Garcia, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “These out-of-state GOP Senate candidates are badly out of touch with the voters that they want to represent and it will lead their campaigns to defeat in 2024.”

• McCormick faced similar residency questions in 2022, when he lost to Oz in Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary. 

• McCormick also did himself no favors last fall when he mispronounced the name of Pennsylvania’s beloved Yuengling beer on a conservative podcast — a blunder reminiscent of the time Oz went shopping for items to assemble a crudité platter and butchered the name of a local grocery store chain.

• Elsewhere, Democrats delighted in sharing a recent article from Michigan Advance headlined, “Where is Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood?”— a report that highlighted the home that Mike Rogers and his wife own in Cape Coral, Florida. The home is valued at nearly $1.7 million, and the couple claimed a $50,000 homestead exemption on their last property tax bill, records show. 

• “Michigan families won’t be fooled by Rogers after he abandoned them for Florida and walked through the revolving door to enrich himself with cushy corporate gigs,” said Sam Chan, a spokesperson for the Michigan Democratic Party.

• In Montana, meanwhile, Democratic allies of Sen. Jon Tester are attempting to cast his potential GOP opponents as Big Sky posers and relative newcomers in a state where authenticity is often measured by how long your family has lived there.

• Democrats still emphasize [Rep. Matt Rosendale’s] Maryland roots. His NRSC-backed rival for the GOP nomination, Minnesota native and aerospace entrepreneur Tim Sheehy, has even poked fun at his accent.

• “In the end, I really don’t think it matters for me,” Tester, who boasts about his work on the Montana dirt farm that’s been in his family for generations, told NBC News last week after Rosendale entered the race. “It’s either an out-of-stater that [Senate GOP Leader Mitch] McConnell’s picked or out-of-stater that McConnell hasn’t picked.”

• Democrats are also likely to bring their anti-carpetbagger messaging to Wisconsin, where Republican Eric Hovde, who lost a 2012 Senate primary in the state, is preparing for another run. Allies of Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin already are highlighting the bank he runs in California, where he has been named as one of Orange County’s most influential people. A source close to Hovde rejected the attacks, noting that he is a prominent real estate developer in the state, a “fourth generation Wisconsinite” and “Wisconsin through and through.”

• The Democratic strategy is in part a byproduct of GOP efforts this cycle to recruit more wealthy Senate candidates who can self-fund their campaigns. But prospects like McCormick, Sheehy and Hovde also bring potential baggage along with their wealth.

• “Republicans over the years have suffered with candidate quality, and it’s cost them races in numerous states. It appears their strategy has become to recruit candidates from outside of the states to run,” …said Justin Barasky, a Democratic strategist and veteran of Senate campaigns.

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