ICYMI: Republican Primaries Grow Bitter as MAGA Clashes With Wealthy Self-Funders [Newsweek]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT 

Newsweek: Republican Primaries Grow Bitter as MAGA Clashes With Wealthy Self-Funders
By Alex J. Rouhandeh
September 11, 2023

Key Points: 

• The divide between candidates favored by the Republican establishment and those favored by former President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base continues to grow as the MAGA faithful go after wealthy Republican candidates.
  
  
• This clash threatens to further tear at the fabric of the GOP’s identity going into the 2024 election season.
  
  
• On one side, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has “placed an emphasis” on recruiting candidates who can finance their races.
  
  
• But former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a Trump ally and potential GOP candidate for the 2024 Senate race in Wisconsin, blasted this strategy in an April episode of his podcast.
  
  
• “The Republican Party has an image problem. The Democrats have painted them as the Party of the rich and a good old boy club of white males. Say what you want but there is some truth to that visually.”
  
  
• The former sheriff is not the only candidate with MAGA credibility to take shots at an NRSC-recruited candidates’ finances.
  
  
• Republican Congressman Alex Mooney, who’s running for the West Virginia Senate seat, has called Justice the “king of scandals” due to reports of the mounting debt, unpaid fines, and other financial troubles the governor’s businesses have faced.
  
  
• Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale, who received Trump’s endorsement for a failed 2018 Senate bid and is weighing a second bid in 2024, called Sheehy a protector of the “DC cartel,” linking him to McConnell and “the party bosses.”
  

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