MinnPost’s Sam Brodey recently reported on how Republican House Candidates – including Minnesota’s Second District’s Jason Lewis – are responding to Donald Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket. Lewis, the former conservative talk radio host, has attracted national and local media attention thanks to his own stockpile of incendiary and offensive remarks on and off the air.
All this while the divisive Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan are both in Minnesota to raise funds. It’s unclear whether Lewis was invited to either event, but – if national patterns hold – it’s not likely the would-be Freedom Caucus member received an invite to share Speaker Ryan’s time in the state.
Some key sections from MinnPost:
“The former talk radio host has built a brand on flouting political correctness and thrives in the media spotlight — a quality that’s prompted more than one Beltway outlet to deem Lewis a ‘mini-Trump.’”
“By October 2015, when he was officially a candidate for Congress, Lewis said he was ‘not afraid of Donald Trump as some of my friends in the establishment are.’”
“‘I said all along,’ Lewis said at the state GOP convention, ‘all the way back last fall when this thing started that I would support the Republican nominee, and I will.’”
“It’s not surprising someone who has called women ‘ignorant’ and ‘non-thinking,’ who questions whether or not slavery is ok, and who talks openly about how white people are committing ‘cultural suicide’ by failing to ‘procreate’ as much as minorities, is terrifying to the Republican establishment,” said Sacha Haworth of the DCCC. “The only question is, how long before National Republicans walk away from ‘Mini-Trump’ Jason Lewis entirely?”