ICYMI: GOP recruitment struggles give Democrats hope in 2022 Senate fight [NBC]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

NBC: GOP recruitment struggles give Democrats hope in 2022 Senate fight

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s decision to forgo a Senate bid dealt a blow to Republican hopes of flipping a Democratic-held seat.
By Sahil Kapur, Alex Seitz-Wald and Henry Gomez
November 10, 2021

Key Points:

• From New England to Arizona, Republicans are struggling to land top-tier recruits…Party operatives find themselves having to keep a close eye on several Senate hopefuls they see as unelectable, a familiar problem for the GOP.

•  This time around, the midterm battle has taken on a new tenor with former President Donald Trump picking favorites, enforcing loyalty tests and lashing out at prospective candidates who criticized his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.

• Trump’s intense support among core GOP voters requires Republican candidates to walk a tightrope — appearing as his enemy can be politically fatal in a primary, but embracing him risks alienating crucial swing voters in a general election.

• David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm, said that Sununu’s decision was “a massive recruitment failure” by Republicans and that the GOP was elevating candidates with “major personal and political flaws” in what he predicted would be “vicious, expensive primaries.”

• Republicans have concerns about their top primary candidates…In Pennsylvania, Sean Parnell, whom Trump endorsed, denied his estranged wife’s accusations of abuse at a custody hearing this week. In Georgia, former football star Herschel Walker is seen as a front-runner thanks to Trump’s endorsement, even though The Associated Press, citing court records and documents, reported about accusations that Walker threatened to kill his ex-wife. And in Missouri, former Gov. Eric Greitens is attempting a comeback after sexual misconduct allegations appeared to have derailed his career.

• In other states, GOP prospects with far less baggage have resisted calls to run for the Senate […] Justin Barasky, a Democratic media strategist who works on Senate races, said more moderate Republicans have resisted running because “there’s no room for sanity in the Republican Party.”

###