“If you have any common sense, you know she’s an anchor on the party. She is weighing us down.”
— Georgia GOP elections official Gabriel Sterling, quoted by Politico, on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
“If you have any common sense, you know she’s an anchor on the party. She is weighing us down.”
— Georgia GOP elections official Gabriel Sterling, quoted by Politico, on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
“Dozens of Republicans in former President George W. Bush’s administration are leaving the party, dismayed by a failure of many elected Republicans to disown Donald Trump after his false claims of election fraud sparked a deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol last month,” Reuters reports.
“These officials, some who served in the highest echelons of the Bush administration, said they had hoped that a Trump defeat would lead party leaders to move on from the former president and denounce his baseless claims that the November presidential election was stolen.”
“But with most Republican lawmakers sticking to Trump, these officials say they no longer recognize the party they served.”
Politico: “This is what a nightmare scenario looks like. With the party reeling in the wake of its 2020 unraveling — when it lost too many centrist voters — state Republicans now worry Greene will emerge as the face of the GOP, tainting the entire ticket with a stamp of conspiracy theory and extremism in the run-up to the 2022 midterms.”
“Georgia Republicans expect Greene will face a primary challenge, and some hope she could somehow be drawn into a tougher seat during redistricting. But they acknowledge she’s popular in her district. Greene’s primary opponent in 2020, John Cowan, is considering running against her again.”
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Politico: “What the GOP decides to do about Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene will offer significant clues about the direction of the party in the post-Trump era. Some Republicans are warning that punishing Cheney while letting Greene go untouched — and thereby aligning the party even more closely to Trump — could be a major black eye for the party heading into 2022.”
New York Times: An emboldened extremist wing flexes its power in a leaderless GOP.
“Former President Donald Trump amassed $31.2 million in his new political operation by the end of 2020, giving him a powerful tool to keep the Republican Party in his grip as he left office,” Politico reports.
“Save America, a leadership PAC created in the aftermath of the 2020 election, is set to play a key role in Trump’s plans to keep a strong hand in party politics — both to boost loyalists and also to seek retribution against Republicans he believes have wronged him, such as the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in mid-January. Trump cannot spend the PAC funds directly on any future campaign of his own, but he can use it to wield influence in campaigns in the midterm elections, pay his political advisers and travel the country.”
“Kelli Ward on Friday rejected calls for an audit into her recent reelection as the chair of the Arizona Republican Party and other party races, arguing that the state GOP does not have the structure to review them,” CNN reports.
“I tried for four years to be a ‘Never Trumper’ in the Republican Party but it’s obvious now, everyone is paying homage to this ex-president. No one will stand up to him… Well, I’m a Texan and I don’t lick anyone’s boots.”
— Longtime GOP donor Jacob Monty, telling CNN he’s no longer a Republican.
Frank Bruni: “It’s a measure of the Republican Party’s current depravity that I think of the period when Marco Rubio was besmirching Donald Trump’s genitalia as the good old days.”
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel encouraged Donald Trump not to form a third party, the Patriot Party, as he had been discussing, the Washington Post reports.
“The embittered Trump made no promises.”
“The Republican Party is riven by internal tensions, and moderate voices fear it is headed for disaster at the hands of the far right,” The Hill reports.
“The centrists’ worry is that the party is branding itself as the party of insurrectionists and conspiracy theorists. This spells catastrophe for the GOP’s ability to appeal beyond a hardcore base, they say.”
“The verdict is clear: The vast majority of Republicans will stand firm with former President Trump. The next phase is clear, too: Republicans are rallying around a common grievance that big government, big media and big business are trying to shut them up, shut them out and shut them down,” Axios reports.
“The post-Trump GOP, especially its most powerful media platforms, paint the new reality as an existential threat. This means political attacks are seen — or characterized — as assaults on their very being.”
“Donald Trump has mused about forming a third party. But it’s not clear why he needs one,” the AP reports.
“As he faces an impeachment trial for inciting insurrection, state and county Republican Party committees have rushed to Trump’s defense — highlighting the former president’s firm control of the GOP machinery.”
“Three weeks ago, Donald Trump was radioactive, even in the top quarters of his own party. Now, those same Republicans are convinced they can’t live without the energy he gives off, even if it proves toxic,” Politico reports.
“The GOP is engaged in a delicate dance to keep Trump and his base of voters in the fold while not seeming too beholden to him. Without Trump’s cooperation, the party fears losing a fundraising giant just as it pivots to a midterm cycle in which it hopes to regain majorities in each chamber of Congress.”
The Republican National Committee is planning to invite former President Donald Trump to its upcoming spring donor meeting, Politico reports.
The RNC is also expected to invite other potential 2024 candidates and Republican leaders to the retreat, which is to be held in Palm Beach, Florida, April 9 to 11.
“After months of sounding the alarm on what she claimed was a stolen presidential election, Kelli Ward is facing questions about her own reelection Saturday as Arizona Republican Party chair,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“Sergio Arellano, the southern Arizona businessman who narrowly lost to Ward in a run-off, has asked state party officials for an audit of the election results.”
“House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday implored Republicans to stop publicly attacking each other amid GOP infighting over the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riots, which has created simmering tensions inside the conference,” Politico reports.
“During a private conference call, McCarthy told members that they should be spending more time countering the Biden agenda than chastising each other, adding he would no longer have any tolerance for such behavior… McCarthy also reminded House Republicans that they will have an opportunity to air their grievances during a closed-door meeting in the Capitol next week, where a conservative-led push to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) over her vote to impeach President Donald Trump is expected to come to a head.”
Cook Political Report: “Unreleased survey research—both quantitative polls and qualitative focus groups—since the January 6th attack on the Capitol suggests that between 25 and 30 percent of Trump voters now have very mixed feelings about having backed him. They are less likely to believe that the election was stolen, and they were alarmed by the attack in Washington. They care more about the coronavirus pandemic and the direction of the economy.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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