ICYMI: Trump acolytes poised to push out Senate dealmakers [POLITICO]

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POLITICO: Trump acolytes poised to push out Senate dealmakers
By Marc Caputo
August 31, 2021

Key Points:

• In the five states where Republican senators are retiring, the primary election fields to succeed them are crowded with Donald Trump supporters who have made loyalty to the former president a cornerstone of their campaigns.

• The three top candidates to succeed Sen. Richard Burr in North Carolina have all denounced his vote to convict Trump in his last impeachment trial. In Pennsylvania, the four leading candidates to succeed Sen. Pat Toomey — who, like Burr, was formally rebuked by the state party for his impeachment vote — have embraced Trump’s calls for an “audit” of the state’s presidential election results, to varying degrees.

• The absolute fealty to Trump is only part of the change this class of candidates would herald. There are institutional implications for the Senate as well. The bipartisan infrastructure deal Ohio’s Sen. Rob Portman helped broker? Six of the top GOP candidates vying to replace him have rejected it.

• At least five current House members have announced they are running for the open Senate seats, nearly all of whom are more hard-line conservative than the senators they’d replace.

• McConnell has already indicated his willingness to intervene in GOP primary battles — even against Trump-backed candidates — if he perceives there are electability issues that might endanger the party’s chances of winning the seat.

• Already that dynamic is leading to tensions in Missouri, where GOP officials worry the candidacy of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens — who resigned office amid a 2018 sex scandal — will jeopardize the party’s chances of holding Blunt’s seat.

• Trump has also backed North Carolina Rep. Ted Budd, another House Freedom Caucus member who voted against certifying the presidential results and, along with fellow Senate candidate and former Rep. Mark Walker, joined a lawsuit to overturn the presidential election.

• Some believe that Trump’s relentless efforts to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania could backfire in a general election.

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