Republicans Brace for “Ugly” Primaries as GOP Infighting Continues Escalating Across the Map

New reporting from the National Journal highlights “the potential for GOP primaries to turn as ugly as they did in 2022,” when nominees were left “battered” with “empty campaign coffers heading into the general election.” 

The analysis follows previous reporting that Senate Republicans are “beginning to worry” they’re “again facing the risk of problematic candidates,” “looming primary wars,” and “intraparty fights.”

See for yourself:

• National Journal: Senate map comes into focus. “Democrats feel as if they have a blueprint from last cycle” with a “brewing feud between the Club [for Growth] and the Senate Leadership Fund” and “the potential for GOP primaries to turn as ugly as they did in 2022, which left Republican nominees battered by millions of dollars worth of attack ads and empty campaign coffers heading into the general election.” 

• The Cook Political Report: The Looming Senate GOP Primary Wars. After “fumbling an effort to take back the majority in 2022 thanks to a slate of problematic nominees,” Republicans are bracing for “looming Senate GOP primary wars” in 2024.  

• Axios: GOP’s stormy 2024 outlook. Senate Republicans are already “concerned” about their candidate quality and are in a “lose-lose situation” when it comes to backing Trump as their intra-party fights escalate in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. 

• Washington Examiner: Club for Growth draws 2024 battle lines in key Senate primaries. “The Club for Growth will be at odds with national Republicans” as the GOP braces for “costly and bruising intraparty fights … in key Senate races.” 

• Axios: Senate GOP’s 2024 landmines. With “the mood of the GOP base squarely behind the most intemperate right-wing voices… primary headaches are looming” as Senate Republicans “are again facing the risk of problematic candidates emerging in must-win races.” 

• POLITICO: The one thing Trump and McConnell agree on: A hatred for this group. The Club for Growth is positioning itself “at the center of an intraparty collision course” and “creating unnecessarily messy primaries” in key battleground states across the map.
  
  
• ABC News: How looming ‘proxy war’ in 2024 Republican primaries could define key races nationwide. Senate Republicans are concerned that a “major proxy war” will break out as the “bloody primar[y]… battle” between the Senate Leadership Fund and the Club for Growth intensifies in states across the map.

• POLITICO: Playbook: The GOP faces its ‘candidate quality’ issues. Republicans are “beginning to worry” about “rocky” primaries across the map as “far-right candidates … who are uniquely damaged and unelectable … are mulling runs and gaining traction amid clear signs they will fail miserably in the general election.”

###