After a tight race, incumbent Representative Peter Meijer lost to Trump loyalist John Gibbs in Michigan’s GOP primary contest for the state’s third congressional district on Tuesday.
Gibbs garnered 53 percent of the vote to Meijer’s 47 percent as of around midnight on Wednesday, ABC News reported.
The race tested the power of former president Trump’s endorsement, which Gibbs secured after embracing the MAGA platform and backing the theories that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
“John Gibbs is a fabulous talent who loves the State, our Military, and our Vets. He will always protect our Second Amendment, our Southern Border, and the Police—there will be no defunding with John!,” Trump said of Gibbs.
Meijer, on the other hand, was one of ten Republicans to vote to impeach Trump over his role in inciting the January 6 Capitol riot. His election prospects seemed to sour after that move, with progressive polling agency Impact Research finding in a February poll that likely voters preferred any other Republican to Meijer by more than 40 points. Respondents favored Meijer when they were told that those two were their only options, but his winning margin evaporated when voters were reminded of Meijer’s impeachment vote and Trump’s approval of Gibbs.
Meijer’s loss comes after Democratic operatives financially intervened on behalf of his opponent, launching an ad-buy scheme that would depict him as the less “conservative” choice.
On Monday, Meijer published an op-ed detailing the large sum the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had spent in Michigan’s third congressional district to prop up Gibbs, whom it deemed an easier adversary to beat in the general election.
The DCCC ran an $425,000 ad for Gibbs that, although critical of the candidate, framed him as the “more conservative” option, which Michigan residents upset with Meijer’s anti-Trump activism were likely to find appealing. The DCCC’s ad expense amounted to more than Gibbs raised over his entire campaign and nearly 100 times the money Trump himself pledged to Gibbs, Meijer noted. As of June 30, Meijer had garnered about $2.9 million in donations compared to Gibbs’ $444,000.
“John Gibbs is too conservative for west Michigan,” the ad said. It claimed Gibbs would carry on Trump’s America First policy mantle, including by being “hard-line against immigrants at the border” and “supporting ‘patriotic education.'”
Despite supporting Meijer’s push to punish Trump for his January 6 involvement, the Democrats have been hell-bent on preserving their congressional majority in the 2022 midterms. Funding Gibbs seemed to be a strategy towards that goal.
“The DCCC boosting John Gibbs is clear evidence of who Nancy Pelosi prefers in this race,” Meijer spokeswoman Emily Taylor told National Review last month. “Democrats don’t want to face Peter Meijer in the November election because Peter is the best candidate to represent West Michigan in Congress, and he’s the only candidate who will put the interests of the Third District ahead of partisan priorities.”