Senate Republicans’ Flawed Candidates on Full Display as GOP Infighting Continues to Escalate

This week, as Senate Republicans’ flawed candidates continued to brawl in “increasingly crowded” and “contested” primaries, their “intraparty rifts” and candidates’ vulnerabilities were once again on full display in races across the map.

• In Arizona, after Republicans spent months expressing doubts and fears about Kari Lake, the start of Lake’s Senate campaign inspired a wave of new reporting highlighting how Republicans are “freaking out” about her candidacy. Republicans like Sen. Romney even said they “don’t think [Lake] has any prospect of actually being elected.”
  

• In Montana, potential candidate Matt Rosendale and Tim Sheehy continued to take jabs at each other, this time over their Q3 fundraising announcements. Rosendale’s campaign attacked Sheehy for contributing $650,000 of his own money to his campaign, saying, “Despite Mitch McConnell and the D.C. Cartel going out of their way to raise money for Mr. Sheehy, he was still forced to loan his campaign $600k.” This is only the latest in a long line of “Rosendale’s relentless criticisms of Sheehy as a tool of the ‘party bosses’ in Washington,” and an “out-of-touch Senate candidate.” Rosendale also picked up a new endorsement from Montana Rep. Brad Tschida, adding to the growing list of Montana legislators calling for Rosendale to run against NRSC-backed Sheehy.
  

• In Ohio, the GOP’s “bloody,” “messy,” and “bruising” primary was on full display at a  Senate Candidate Forum: after Frank LaRose refused to endorse term limits, Bernie Moreno “torche[d] him for being a career politician who immediately started planning his run for US Senate after just getting elected Secretary of State.” LaRose and Moreno also sparred over support for Ukraine funding. 

• In Pennsylvania, David McCormick is facing increased scrutiny over his lies about living in Pennsylvania. Last week, new reporting from The Messenger found that McCormick flew back home to Connecticut less than 24 hours after launching his campaign for U.S. Senate and has been delinquent on property taxes on his Pittsburgh property twice.

• In Nevada, new reporting revealed that Sam Brown tried to hide his leadership of an anti-choice organization on his candidate financial disclosure document in an apparent violation of federal law. He’s also been caught trying to erase his close ties to the group from their website altogether. The Las Vegas Sun reported that “Brown was still featured prominently on the Nevada Faith & Freedom Coalition’s website…until shortly after the Sun reached out to Brown’s campaign Tuesday.” Jeffrey Gunter attacked “swampy Scam Brown” over the controversy, calling him a “perpetual losing candidate and fraud.”

• In West Virginia, Mooney attacked Justice for his inability to “keep his own finances in order,” citing a recent report detailing that Justice’s personal financial disclosure “included a long list of assets but showed that many make little to no income” and  “included millions of dollars in liabilities.”
  

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