|
Last Friday, the Washington Examiner reported that Elise Stefanik rescinded her endorsement of Republican Craig Riedel in OH-09 after the establishment pick criticized Donald Trump during a leaked donor call. The incident highlights the former president’s continued stranglehold over the Republican Party — which has led to one of the ugliest GOP primaries in the entire country.
DCCC Spokesperson Aidan Johnson:
“The GOP’s radical fealty to Donald Trump is once again causing them to scramble and recruit an even worse candidate. Voters in Northwest Ohio will have a clear choice next November between Republican chaos and principled, level-headed leadership.”
Washington Examiner: The GOP ship is going down with the captain
Zachary Faria | January 5, 2024
-
Democrats are doing everything in their power to beat Republicans in 2024. Luckily for them, so are Republicans.
-
House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) decided to rescind her endorsement of candidate Craig Riedel, a top GOP recruit running in a swing district in Ohio. What did Riedel do to be abandoned when House Republicans are staring down a tough election cycle with just a two-seat House majority? He was not very nice to former President Donald Trump.
-
Riedel said of Trump in a leaked audio, “I think he is arrogant. I don’t like the way he calls people names. I just don’t think that’s very becoming of a president.” And that was enough for Stefanik to cut ties, saying that she was “very disappointed in his inappropriate comments regarding President Trump.”
-
Republicans scrambled to find another recruit after Riedel’s benign (and accurate) comments leaked, and are now risking a split field that would benefit J.R. Majewski, the awful pro-Trump candidate who lost by 13 points in 2020.
-
As my colleague Tim Carney wrote, this is shameful and morally bankrupt.
-
But it is also a foolish political calculation.
- You could not come up with a dumber strategy. It is made worse when those Republicans aren’t just endorsing Trump but cutting loose Republicans who even mildly criticize him, as Stefanik and the House GOP are doing with Riedel. The GOP ship is sinking because it won’t throw overboard the captain who keeps crashing it into icebergs. What more could Democrats ask for?
|
