You can already see some preemptive blame-throwing about the 2022 GOP Senate class from President Trump and Sean Hannity.
You can already see some preemptive blame-throwing about the 2022 GOP Senate class from President Trump and Sean Hannity.
Trump recently raged on Truth Social, “Why do Republicans Senators allow a broken down hack politician, Mitch McConnell, to openly disparage hard working Republican candidates for the United States Senate. This is such an affront to honor and to leadership. He should spend more time (and money!) helping them get elected, and less time helping his crazy wife and family get rich on China!”
(McConnell’s so-called “crazy wife” is Elaine Chao, who served as Trump’s Secretary of Transportation for four years.)
McConnell’s “open disparagement” was the statement, “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”
Separately, Hannity fumed, “Democrats are painting Republican Senate candidates in upcoming elections and midterms as cruel and out of touch. Well, apparently Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is content to leave them out to dry and fend for themselves.”
Apparently, if Republicans don’t win the Senate in 2022, it will be Mitch McConnell’s fault.
Of course, McConnell can’t control who GOP primary electorates choose to nominate, and one glaring piece of counter-evidence is that McConnell’s super-PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, just announced it would spend $28 million on television ads in Ohio to help elect J. D. Vance. For perspective, as of June 30, the Vance campaign had spent less than $3 million . . . total, not just on television ads.
How is spending $28 million “leav[ing] them out to dry and fend for themselves,” as Hannity characterized it?
The evidence is mounting that the 2022 GOP primaries nominated a bunch of candidates who are not great fundraisers and who could win contested primaries, but have real trouble connecting with the broader electorate.
What do GOP Senate candidates Mehmet Oz, Herschel Walker, Vance, Blake Masters,* and the not-so-Trumpy Joe O’Dea have in common?
None of them have run for office before. Ever. Not even town council or school board.
And as we look at the governor’s races:
- Arizona GOP nominee Kari Lake has never run for any office before.
- Arkansas GOP nominee Sarah Huckabee Sanders has never run for any office before. (She’ll probably win anyway.)
- Michigan GOP nominee Tudor Dixon has never run for any office before.
A few of the Trump-aligned gubernatorial nominees, like Dan Cox in Maryland and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, have been elected to seats in their state legislatures. We can argue whether that adequately prepares you for a hard-fought statewide race, but at least that’s something.
Running for office is hard. It looks easy from the outside; most aspiring political candidates walk around in a self-deluding fog of optimism and narcissism, believing that most people just naturally like them, and if they just go out and say the right things, they will coast to victory. A lot of people figure that their biggest obstacle is name ID, and that once the electorate gets to know them, voters will embrace the candidate in droves.
It very rarely works out that way.
These candidates boast of being outsiders and not being career politicians, and no doubt that can be an advantage in certain circumstances. But it also means you start with lower name ID, have a smaller network of supporters, and have a tougher time raising money. Ideally, you have an impressive life story outside of politics and government, but you have no accomplishments in government to attract voters. All of these candidates begin their messaging by touting their endorsement by Trump, and that’s going to help a candidate in a GOP-leaning place like Wyoming, Arkansas, and probably Ohio. In places like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, maybe not.
By the way, you remember who was one of the loudest, and most enthusiastic supporters of Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary? Sean Hannity, whom Oz thanked for acting as a de facto campaign adviser: “He understands just how to make a difference and he’s been doing that the entire campaign,” Oz said. “Much of it behind the scenes—giving me advice in late-night conversations. Again, the kinds of things true friends do for each other.”
*I had originally listed likely New Hampshire GOP Senate nominee Don Bolduc as a first-time candidate, but in 2020, Bolduc ran for the GOP Senate nomination, finishing second with 58,749 votes. New Mexico GOP nominee Mark Ronchetti ran for Senate in 2020, and Connecticut GOP nominee Robert Stefanowski was the GOP nominee for governor in 2018. I was going off a list of candidates who had never won office before, and none of these candidates mention their unsuccessful bids on their campaign biographies.