ICYMI: DSCC Chair Sen. Peters: “The Folks Who Win Republican Primaries Tend To Be The Extreme Candidates. And That Will Be An Opportunity For Us.”

New reporting from POLITICO and Axios highlights that “GOP primary implosions,” “messy intra-GOP politics,” and the potential for Trump to “jeopardize” Republicans’ opportunities in 2024 are contributing to “the GOP’s shrinking Senate map.” 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

POLITICO: Dems’ great hope to hold the Senate: GOP primary implosions

By Burgess Everett and Holly Otterbein 

May 15, 2023 

Key points:

• Democrats don’t think Washington Republicans can climb out of their nationwide electability quagmire with candidates like Marchant.

• “The folks who win Republican primaries tend to be the extreme candidates. And that will be an opportunity for us,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said in an interview.

• The DSCC has put out a string of press releases so far this year seizing on the possibility of messy GOP internal battles, with subject lines ranging from “Republicans Brace for ‘Ugly’ Primaries as GOP Infighting Continues Escalating Across the Map,” to “West Virginia Republicans’ ‘Battle Royale’ Senate Primary Continues to Escalate: ‘Let the Mud Fly’” to “GOP Infighting Continues to Escalate in 2024 Senate Primaries.”

• JB Poersch, president of the Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, said that Senate GOP primaries have recently tended to help Democrats. 

• “Primaries generally exacerbate their problems, and it makes candidates out of touch and puts them further out of the mainstream,” Poersch said of Republicans. “It’s a mean process for them.”
  
  

Axios: The GOP’s shrinking Senate map

By Josh Kraushaar

May 14, 2023

Key points:

• In an interview with CNN last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was cautious about the number of top GOP pickup opportunities.

• Why it matters: If Trump’s endorsements of weak candidates hurt GOP prospects in 2022, it’s the prospect that Trump will lead the GOP presidential ticket that could jeopardize purple-state opportunities in 2024.

• Zoom out: Trump’s chaotic town hall on CNN this week, where he continued to deny the outcome of the 2020 election, promised pardons to many of the Jan. 6 rioters, and failed to offer support for Ukraine, is perfect fodder to use against purple-state GOP candidates — if Trump leads the ticket.
  
• It also threatens to dampen recruiting among non-MAGA candidates.
  

See also: Republicans Brace for “Ugly” Primaries as GOP Infighting Continues Escalating Across the Map.

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