After Alabama, GOP anti-establishment wing declares all-out war in 2018The stunning defeat of President Trump’s chosen Senate candidate in Alabama on Tuesday amounted to a political lightning strike —
setting the stage for a worsening Republican civil war that could have profound effects on next year’s midterm elections and undermine Trump’s clout with his core voters.
The GOP primary victory by conservative firebrand Roy Moore over Sen. Luther Strange could also produce
a stampede of Republican retirements in the coming months and an energized swarm of challengers.
It marked yet
another humiliation for the Washington-based Republican establishment, particularly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose allies pumped millions of dollars into the race to prop up Strange and reassure his colleagues that they could survive the Trump era.
Moore’s win, however,
also demonstrates the real political limitations of Trump, who endorsed “Big Luther” at McConnell’s urging and staged a rally for Strange in Huntsville, Ala., just days before the primary.
The outcome is likely to further fray Trump’s ties to Republicans in Congress, many of whom now fear that even his endorsement cannot protect them from voter fury.
The tremors began before the polls closed in Alabama. Sen.
Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced on Tuesday afternoon that he would not seek reelection in 2018, dogged by complaints from conservatives in his state over his criticism of Trump. A number of Corker’s potential primary rivals had already begun talks with wealthy donors.
Hard-line challengers to Senate Republicans seized on the fall of Strange, who had been boosted by Trump and millions in outside Republican spending, as a sign of how the clamor of anti-establishment forces like Breitbart News — chaired by former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon — could empower them, regardless of whether Trump rallies behind sitting senators.
“
People everywhere are outraged with the swamp, but there has been hesitation in some states among people who are thinking about it. They wondered whether these senators can be beat. This changes all of that,” said Danny Tarkanian, a GOP businessman running against Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).
With Corker retiring,
seven Senate Republicans are expected to run for reelection next year: Wicker, Heller, Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Orrin G. Hatch (Utah) and John Barrasso (Wyo.).
For months, only three of them — Flake, Heller and Wicker — were widely seen as vulnerable to primary upsets. But in the wake of Alabama,
GOP operatives are no longer ruling out an expanded map of targets for Bannon and his associates, such as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who stormed behind Moore’s candidacy to reassert her influence within the party.
“
For Mitch McConnell and Ward Baker and Karl Rove and Steven Law, all the instruments that tried to destroy Judge Moore and his family, your day of reckoning is coming,” Bannon said Monday night at Moore’s election eve rally, listing the names of Republican operatives who are allied with McConnell and spent more than $10 million to boost Strange’s candidacy.
“They think you’re a pack of morons, they think you’re nothing but rubes, they have no interest at all in what you have to say, in what you have to think or what you want to do,” Bannon told the crowd.
Retirements among House Republicans could rise as well.
“More and more Republicans may say I don’t want the hassle from the activists on the left and the Trump Republicans on the right,” said GOP consultant and Trump critic Rick Wilson. “
There’ll be more who say, ‘I’ll hang up my spurs.’ ”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-alabama-anti-establishment-wing-declares-all-out-war-in-2018/2017/09/26/96d1f54a-a2d0-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html
