Month: August 2022

Morning Digest: Liz Cheney goes down in defeat, but Sarah Palin’s comeback campaign is unresolved

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

Embedded Content

Leading Off

● WY-AL, AK-AL: Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney lost Tuesday’s Republican primary 66-29 to Trump-backed attorney Harriet Hageman, but we’re going to need to wait another two weeks to learn who prevailed in Alaska’s instant-runoff special election to succeed the late Republican Rep. Don Young.

With 150,000 ballots tabulated early Wednesday, which the Associated Press estimates represents 69% of the total vote, former Democratic state Rep. Mary Peltola leads with 38% as two Republicans, former reality TV show star Sarah Palin and businessman Nick Begich III, grab 32% and 29%, respectively; the balance is made up of write-in votes.

The Last Frontier allows mail-in ballots postmarked by election day to be counted if they're received through the end of the month, so these margins may shift: State election officials say they plan to have updated results on Aug. 23 and Aug. 26, with final numbers on Aug. 31. After all the votes are tabulated, officials will conduct an instant runoff to reallocate the third-place finisher's votes to the two remaining candidates.

No matter what, though, Peltola, Palin, and Begich will all be on the ballot again in the November instant-runoff election for a full two-year term along with one other competitor. (This special election only had three candidates because independent Al Gross dropped out shortly after taking third in the June special top-four primary.)

Tuesday was also the day that Alaska held its top-four primaries for statewide and legislative offices, and the results of the House race so far closely resemble the special tallies: Peltola is in first with 35%, Palin second with 31%, and Begich third at 27%. Another Republican, former state Interior Department official Tara Sweeney, leads Libertarian Chris Bye 4-1 for fourth, but the AP has not called the final spot in the general.

While it will take some time to know the winner in Alaska, though, there was no suspense about what would happen with Cheney in dark-red Wyoming. The congresswoman just two years ago was the third-ranking member of the House GOP leadership and a strong contender to become the first Republican woman to serve as speaker, but she instantly became a national party pariah when she voted to impeach Trump; Cheney went on to serve on the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack along with just one other Republican, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger.

Trump and his allies made defeating Cheney a top priority, and his “Bachelor” style endorsement process eventually resulted in him supporting Hageman, who had placed third in the 2018 primary for governor. (Politico relays that Trump’s team originally considered backing her in a prospective rematch against Gov. Mark Gordon.) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Club for Growth went on to fall in line behind Hageman, a one-time Trump skeptic who now embraces the Big Lie.

Cheney’s defeat makes her the eighth House Republican to lose renomination this year compared to four Democrats so far. The Wyoming result also means that at least eight of the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment will not be going back to Congress next year because of primary losses and retirements: Only California Rep. David Valadao and Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse advanced through their respective top-two primaries, though Valadao still has to win his competitive general election against Democrat Rudy Salas.

But Cheney didn’t show any regret about what happened to her once promising career in Republican politics. She proclaimed in her concession speech that “now, the real work begins” and pledged she “will do whatever it takes to ensure Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.”

election recaps

● AK-Sen: Sen. Lisa Murkowski and her fellow Republican, former state cabinet official Kelly Tshibaka, advanced through the top-four primary as expected, though the AP has not yet called the other two spots for the November instant-runoff general election. Murkowski holds a 44-40 edge over her Trump-backed foe as of Wednesday morning, while Democrat ​​Pat Chesbro, who is a member of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Planning Commission, is well behind with 6%. A pair of little-known Republicans, Buzz Kelley and Pat Nolin, are taking 2% and 1%, respectively.

● AK-Gov: Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy will face former Democratic state Rep. Les Gara and independent former Gov. Bill Walker in the fall, but it remains to be seen who will be the fourth general election candidate. Dunleavy is in first with 42%, while Gara and Walker are grabbing 22% each. Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce holds a 7-4 edge for fourth over state Rep. Christopher Kurka in a race where both Republicans are each positioning themselves to the right of the ardently conservative governor.

● WY-Gov: Gov. Mark Gordon didn’t come close to losing his Republican primary, but he still scored an unimpressive 62-30 victory over Brent Bien, a retired Marine colonel who campaigned against the incumbent’s pandemic health measures. Gordon should have no trouble in the fall against the Democratic nominee, retired U.S. Bureau of Land Management employee Theresa Livingston.

● WY-SoS: State Rep. Chuck Gray, a Trump-endorsed election conspiracy theorist who has insisted the 2020 vote was “clearly rigged,” beat state Sen. Tara Nethercott 50-41 in the Republican primary to serve as secretary of state. Wyoming Democrats did not field a candidate here.

Senate

● FL-Sen: The University of North Florida’s newest survey finds Democratic Rep. Val Demings leading Republican Sen. Marco Rubio 48-44, which is actually better for Team Blue than the tie that two different pro-Demings polls recently showed. This is the first independent survey we’ve seen since winter, and quite a departure from the 46-34 Rubio advantage UNF had in February. The New York Times’ Nate Cohn notes that the school obtained its sample by emailing a list of registered voters, which he calls a “​​pretty unusual design.”

● NH-Sen, NH-01, NH-02: Saint Anselm College gives us a rare look at the Sept. 13 Republican primary to take on Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, which is the last competitive Senate primary in the nation, as well as Team Red's nomination contests for New Hampshire's two Democratic-held congressional districts. Before we get into the results, though, we need to note that the school asked several issue questions about abortion before it got to the horserace: We always encourage pollsters to ask these sorts of questions after the horserace to avoid "priming" voters to lean one way or the other.

We'll begin with the Senate question, where Donald Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general who lost the 2020 nomination for New Hampshire's other Senate seat, posts a 32-16 advantage against state Senate President Chuck Morse. Bitcoin millionaire Bruce Fenton and former Londonderry town manager Kevin Smith are far back with just 4% each, while author Vikram Mansharamani notches 2%; a 39% plurality remains undecided with less than a month to go.

This is the first poll we've seen here since April, when the University of New Hampshire had Bolduc beating Smith 33-4. Prominent national groups haven't taken sides here, but Bolduc so far has not run a particularly impressive campaign two years after his 50-42 loss. The frontrunner had a mere $70,000 in the bank at the end of June, and he spent last year accusing Gov. GOP Chris Sununu of being a "Chinese communist sympathizer" with a family business that "supports terrorism."

Bolduc also has ardently embraced the Big Lie, saying at a recent debate, "I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying Trump won the election, and damn it, I stand by [it]." He has plenty of company, though, as Morse is the one GOP candidate who acknowledged that Joe Biden is the president when asked Tuesday if the 2020 election was stolen. Bolduc would also prefer this be the last New Hampshire Senate election in history: Both he and Fenton have called for repealing the 17th Amendment, which gave voters the right to elect their senators in 1913.

Bolduc's many rivals, though, have considerably more resources available as they try to get their names out in the final weeks of the campaign. Fenton finished the second quarter with a $1.63 million war chest, though almost all of that was self-funded. Morse and Mansharamani had $980,000 and $790,000, respectively, with Smith holding $350,000.

Turning to the 1st District, Saint Anselm College shows 2020 nominee Matt Mowers edging out former White House staffer Karoline Leavitt 25-21 in his bid for a rematch against Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas. Former TV reporter Gail Huff Brown and state Rep. Tim Baxter are well behind with 9% and 8%, respectively, with former Executive Councilor Russell Prescott clocking in at 2%. The lead still goes to unsure, though, as 33% did not select a candidate.

Mowers has the backing of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and he finished June with a modest $820,000 to $670,000 cash-on-hand edge over Leavitt. Biden carried both the old and new version of this eastern New Hampshire constituency 52-46 (the court-drawn congressional map made only tiny changes to both of the state's districts after Sununu thwarted efforts by his fellow Republicans in the legislature to make the 1st considerably redder), while Pappas defeated Mowers 51-46 last time.

Finally in the 2nd District, the school finds a hefty 65% undecided in the GOP primary to go up against Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster. Former Hillsborough County Treasurer Robert Burns leads Keene Mayor George Hansel just 12-10 while another 8% goes to Lily Tang Williams, who was the 2016 Libertarian Party nominee for Senate in Colorado. (She earned 4% against Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet.)

Hansel has the backing of Sununu, and he ended the last quarter with a $300,000 to $130,000 cash-on-hand edge over Williams, with Burns holding $100,000. Biden would have prevailed 54-45 here.

Governors

● FL-Gov: The University of North Florida finds Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried beating Rep. Charlie Crist 47-43 in next week's Democratic primary, which makes this the first poll to give her the edge all year. Crist quickly responded by releasing a Change Research survey that gave him a 47-37 advantage, which is only a little larger than the 42-35 Crist lead that Fried's own internal from Public Policy Polling showed just last week. An early August St. Pete Polls survey for Florida Politics had Crist up 56-24.

UNF also takes a look at the general election and has Republican incumbent Ron DeSantis outpacing Crist and Fried 52-40 and 50-43, respectively.

● NH-Gov: Saint Anselm College also surveyed the general election for governor, and it finds Republican incumbent Chris Sununu beating Democratic state Sen. Tom Sherman 48-29. An early July Sherman internal from Public Policy Polling put the governor's lead at a smaller, though still wide, 43-33. The school looks at the Sept. 13 GOP primary as well, but it shows Sununu with a huge 68-6 lead over perennial candidate Karen Testerman.

House

● NY-10: Rep. Mondaire Jones has launched the first negative TV spot of next week's Democratic primary against attorney Dan Goldman, a self-funder who is the only other candidate with the resources to air television ads; Jones' team tells Politico that he's putting $500,000 into this late effort.

The commercial frames the crowded contest as a straight-up choice between "conservative Dan Goldman" or "progressive Mondaire Jones." The narrator goes on to contrast the two, saying, "Dan Goldman has dangerous views on abortion; Mondaire Jones is 100% pro-choice, the best record in Congress." She goes on to argue that Goldman "profited off gun manufacturers" and "made money off FOX News," while the 17th District congressman stood up to the NRA and Republicans.

The spot doesn't go into detail about its charges against Goldman, but Politico provides some background. The candidate last month sat down for an interview with Hamodia's Reuvain Borchardt and was asked, "Should there be any limitation whatsoever on the right to terminate a pregnancy at any point in the pregnancy?" Goldman responded, "I do think, generally speaking, I agree with the break-point of viability, subject to exceptions."

Goldman later said he "would not object" when Borchardt inquired if he'd be alright with a state law that would ban abortion if "there is a perfectly healthy fetus, and the mother just decides after viability that she wants to terminate the pregnancy." However, the candidate then had a conversation with an aide who was also present at the interview, and Borchardt writes that "from that point forward Goldman's responses switched from a post-viability limitation to no limitations at all."

Jones and Goldman's other rivals were quick to go on the attack after the article was published, while Goldman himself insisted he'd "misspoke" and "unequivocally support[s] a woman's right to choose."

As for this ad's charges that Goldman "profited off gun manufacturers" and "made money off FOX News," the New York Daily News recently explained that he has stock in, among many other companies, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, and News Corp. A spokesperson said, "Dan does not manage his money … It is handled by a broker, and is designed to mirror the S&P 500."

● NY-19 (special): DCCC Analytics has dropped an internal showing Republican Marc Molinaro edging out Democrat Pat Ryan 46-43 in next week's special election. The last poll we saw was a late July Triton Polling & Research survey for Molinaro's allies at the right-wing Freedom Council USA, and it gave their man a larger 50-40 advantage.

● PA-08: Democratic incumbent Matt Cartwright is out with an internal from GQR Research that shows him defeating Republican Jim Bognet 52-46 in their rematch for a northeastern Pennsylvania constituency that would have supported Trump 51-48. The only other poll we've seen here was a late June survey for Bognet and the NRCC that put the Republican ahead 46-45.

Cartwright held off Bognet 52-48 last cycle as Trump was prevailing in the old 8th District 52-47, a win that made him one of just seven House Democrats to hold a Trump district. The congressman has taken to the airwaves early for 2022, and Politico's Ally Mutnick relays that he's already spent $415,000 on TV for the general election. Bognet, by contrast, on Tuesday began running his first spot since he won the May primary, a joint ad with the NRCC that ties Cartwright to Scranton native Joe Biden.

Secretaries of State

● MA-SoS: MassInc has surveyed the Sept. 6 Democratic statewide primaries for Responsible Development Coalition, and it finds longtime Secretary of State Bill Galvin leading Boston NAACP head Tanisha Sullivan 43-15, which is larger than the 38-25 advantage he posted in a late June poll from YouGov for UMass Amherst. Responsible Development Coalition is funded in part by the Carpenters Union, which backs Galvin.

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: The FBI on Tuesday arrested former Rep. TJ Cox, a California Democrat who won his sole term in a huge 2018 upset, for "15 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering, one count of financial institution fraud, and one count of campaign contribution fraud." Politico says that these charges carry a combined 20-year maximum prison sentence and $250,000 fine.

Prosecutors allege that from 2013 through 2018 Cox "​​illicitly obtained over $1.7 million in diverted client payments and company loans and investments he solicited and then stole." They also say that he broke campaign finance laws by funneling money to friends and family and having them contribute it to his campaign as "part of a scheme and plan to demonstrate individual campaign donations as preferred over the candidate's personal loans or donations to his campaign."

Cox narrowly unseated Republican Rep. David Valadao in 2018 in the 21st Congressional District in the Central Valley, but he lost their tight rematch two years later. Cox initially announced in December of 2020 that he'd run again, but, in a development that now comes as a massive relief for his party, he ultimately decided not to go for it.

Ad Roundup

Dollar amounts reflect the reported size of ad buys and may be larger.

Five questions about Liz Cheney’s political future

Posted on (Updated by Mychael Schnell

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is facing down a new political future after losing her House primary on Tuesday to Trump-endorsed lawyer Harriet Hageman.

Speculation about what the three-term congresswoman who hails from a Republican political dynasty will do once her time in Congress comes to a close has steadily grown louder, and on Wednesday morning the Wyoming Republican said she is “thinking about” mounting a bid for the White House.

Cheney had delivered a defiant speech Tuesday night, slamming former President Trump, the movement he created and the candidates who repeat his claims about the 2020 election. It was at once a concession speech and a promise of a future in public life.

“So I ask you tonight to join me. As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together — Republicans, Democrats and Independents — against those who will destroy our republic,” Cheney said.

But even as she gave little indication of what she will do next, she vowed Tuesday to “do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.”

“This primary election is over, but now the real work begins,” she said.

Here are five questions about Liz Cheney’s political future:

Does she launch a 2024 presidential campaign? 

On Wednesday, less than 12 hours after major networks finalized Cheney’s defeat, Cheney said she is “thinking about” running for president and will make a decision in the coming months.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, had previously dodged questions about a potential 2024 run, preferring to bring the conversation back to her main goal: keeping Trump out of the White House.

But a presidential run would be her “next logical” step, said Republican strategist Scott Jennings.

“There are things you could do, but what better platform would there be than to be running a campaign?” Jennings told The Hill in an interview.

“You can bet that if Cheney launches a campaign for president, she's gonna, you know, the amount of coverage she will get, and the amount of media attention she will get, will far outstrip her standing in the polls,” Jennings added. “And so, it strikes me that if you're wanting to talk to Republican audiences about what you think is an important point of view, what better way to do that and to do it in the presidential cycle?”

Logistically speaking, a Cheney White House bid is possible.

The congresswoman skyrocketed to even greater national prominence through her work as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. She has name recognition, deep ties in the Republican Party and a sizable war chest, with $7.4 million remaining in her campaign account as of three weeks ago, according to NBC News.

And while Cheney, true to pattern, kept much of her speech Tuesday focused on Trump and Trumpism, she didn’t rule anything out for 2024.

Does she run to win the White House — or keep Trump out of it?

Insiders agree winning the 2024 GOP presidential nomination would be an uphill battle for Cheney.

Most hypothetical polls show Trump in the lead and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a proponent of Trump’s policies, in second. And while votes are still being counted, Cheney appears to be trailing by 30 points or more.

But even with little chance of winning, Cheney may run to influence the outcome of the primary. 

“How do you define success?” Jennings said. “For her it may be less about winning the nomination and more about keeping Trump from getting the nomination. So I think it just depends on how you define success.”

Her presence would also give a voice to anti-Trump Republicans who have been largely shut out of a presidential conversation dominated by Trump and people who espouse his policies and rhetoric.

“When it comes to people that are not part of the whole MAGA movement, who are not happy with the direction that the Republican Party has gone, who are more traditional conservative Republicans, like myself, from the past, I think that Liz Cheney is a more appealing option,” said Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence.  

“I think it’s important to have someone like her be willing to continue to push back and tell the truth about what’s happening here,” she said. 

Cheney on Tuesday referenced former President Lincoln, who fought to keep the U.S. unified.

“The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our Union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history,” she said.

What does she do with her time left in office? 

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is already racing against the clock, trying to tie up its investigation within the next few months in anticipation of Republicans winning control of the chamber in November.

But before then, the panel is vowing to hold more public hearings and present additional information to bolster its argument that Trump was at the center of a scheme to keep himself in power — presentations that Cheney will likely play a large role in.

“We’re not winding down right now,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told reporters in the Capitol last month. “It’s been amazing to see, kind of, the flurry of people coming forward, so it’s not the time to wind it down.”

Cheney has played a central role in the committee’s previous hearings, delivering opening and closing statements and questioning witnesses appearing live before the panel.

And she has not shied away from criticizing Trump or her GOP colleagues during those presentations — a practice she will likely continue, if not ramp up, in the remaining months of her term.

Republican strategist Doug Heye told The Hill that whatever path Cheney takes after her primary defeat, she will make sure she remains a vocal presence in American politics, beginning with her work on the committee.

“What's clear is that her voice isn't going to go anywhere,” Heye said. “And that will start with, you know, the next hearings on Jan. 6, and then we'll continue in whatever form she decides to take them in.

What kind of support does she have for future moves?

Cheney may have lost her primary but she still has a vast nationwide network of supporters and donors who could be of help for any future political moves she might make. 

The congresswoman broke her own record in the first quarter of the year, bringing in close to $3 million, and followed that up with a whopping $2.9 million in the second quarter.

In addition to grassroots donations, Cheney raked in money from notable Republican and Democratic donors across the country including former President George W. Bush, his former adviser Karl Rove, film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, and billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman. 

However, in a Republican presidential primary, Cheney would need to appeal to a Republican primary base. And she may not be the only anti-Trump Republican in the field. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has repeatedly been floated as a potential 2024 GOP hopeful and has yet to rule out a run. 

“I think it will be important for them to navigate how they will reach more moderate voters,” Troye said. 

“These are longtime, respected Republican figures,” she continued. “And their voices can reach an audience in a way that many can’t.” 

What could she do besides run for president? 

While a 2024 presidential bid is the most talked-about possibility for Cheney, there are other avenues the congresswoman can pursue as she looks to continue her crusade against Trump.

One would be joining the cable news circuit as a commentator or analyst, which would give the congresswoman a sizable platform to take on the former president and denounce his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

That route is a popular one for former lawmakers. Ex-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who was unseated by then-Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley (R) in 2018, joined NBC News and MSNBC months after the race as a political analyst, and former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was hired by Fox News as a contributor one day after he resigned from the House in 2017.

Cheney could also join a think tank or form her own PAC, as Kinzinger, who is not running for reelection this November, has done.

Kinzinger — another top Trump critic and Cheney’s fellow Republican on the Jan. 6 panel — launched a PAC, titled “Country First,” as a movement to challenge the GOP’s embrace of Trump.

Another option for Cheney is writing a book, a popular move for top figures leaving Washington. After bowing out of running for a third term in 2020, former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), who criticized Trump on a number of occasions, penned a book titled “American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done.”

While it remains unknown what Cheney will choose for her next act, Jennings says the congresswoman likely has a plan driving her recent — and future — political moves.

“I know the Cheneys and I know how smart they are and I know how they operate, and I would be surprised if this wasn’t part of a larger plan, but a plan that fits within a mission,” Jennings said. “I think she believes she’s on a mission here to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. So if that’s your mission, then they’re the kind of people who would build a plan to try to achieve that mission.”

Updated Aug. 17 at 9:38 a.m.

Cheney strikes defiant tone in concession speech: ‘Now the real work begins’

Posted on (Updated by Caroline Vakil

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) sounded defiant in her concession speech on Tuesday, acknowledging that while she had lost her primary, she would do “whatever it takes” to keep former President Trump from getting near the White House again. 

“Two years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the votes. I could easily have done the same again, the path was clear, but it would have required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election,” Cheney said from an outdoor stage in Jackson, Wyo., to an enthusiastic crowd.

“It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel a democratic system and attack the foundations of our Republic. That was a path I could not and would not take,” she continued to applause. “No House seat, no office in this land is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect. And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty.”

Cheney said she had called her primary opponent, attorney Harriet Hageman (R), to concede. But she suggested this was just the beginning of her next chapter.

"The primary election is over," she said. "But now the real work begins."

Hageman’s primary win, riding on Trump's endorsement, was months in the making after Cheney became one of his most vocal Republican critics, voting to impeach him following the Capitol riot and later serving on the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack. 

Cheney’s speech, delivered in front of a backdrop of lush rolling hills as she stood flanked by American flags, sounded less like a concession and more like a call to action. She urged Americans not to adhere to Trump’s baseless claims about the election and to stand up for democratic values. 

The Wyoming Republican warned that the survival of the country was “not guaranteed,” noting that “poisonous lies destroy free nations” — partly alluding to Trump’s dubious claims about the 2020 election. 

She noted that there were candidates for governor and secretary of state who did not believe the validity of President Biden’s 2020 election or might avoid reporting the actual election results, cautioning that “our nation is barreling once again toward crisis, lawlessness and violence.”

Cheney also referenced two former presidents — Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant — two presidents whose legacies are tied to the Civil War and who fought to keep the nation’s union intact, further fueling speculation about Cheney’s own possible White House ambitions.

The speech comes as Cheney was the last pro-impeachment Republican to face a primary this cycle. Only two House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump advanced in their primary, while Cheney and seven others either lost their respective races or opted not to run again.

Last pro-impeachment Republican faces almost certain defeat. How did the others fare in GOP primaries?

Posted on by Thomas Phippen
Ten GOP House members voted to impeach former President Trump, and many have lost their Republican primaries, with Rep. Liz Cheney facing voters Tuesday.

Last pro-impeachment Republican faces almost certain defeat. How did the others fare in GOP primaries?

Posted on by Thomas Phippen
Ten GOP House members voted to impeach former President Trump, and many have lost their Republican primaries, with Rep. Liz Cheney facing voters Tuesday.

Donald Trump’s next-term promises are a laundry list of fascist ideas

Posted on by Hunter

The Washington Post has a roundup of Donald Trump's most recent dystopian visions of what his theoretical second term might look like—if we assume that America just moves on from that whole violent militia-assisted end of democracy thing; the requests to state officials to fake their election totals; and the squirreling away of "highly classified" security secrets to a room in Spytown, USA, otherwise known as Donald Trump's Florida golf club.

His proposals range from petty to just plain crooked, and from impossible to fascist. Since there seems to be no great urgency to put the treasonous coup-plotter and document thief in handcuffs anytime soon, however, we've got time. So, sure. It's a bit like publicly debating Al Capone's gardening skills, but whatever. Let's take a look at the Post's six identified planks in whatever the hell Donald Trump thinks he's building up to.

"Execute drug dealers"

This is a retread. Trump had a pathetic fascist crush on Philippines strongman Rodrigo Duterte from the first months of his presidency, specifically for his "unbelievable job" in the extrajudicial killings of anyone in his country suspected of drug sales. A year into his term, he was already pushing to copy the Duterte approach.

But he didn't do it. He couldn't do it. There's a whole government in the way of plans like, "What if we impose the death penalty for Eric's cocaine dealer while eliminating all penalties for selling nuclear secrets to Russia?” We know Trump was just itching to kill people because, once William Barr landed in the attorney general spot, the administration started executing death row prisoners like it was a new Trump team sport. But it's already looking like much of Trump's would-be new presidential campaign will be based on pointing out that he was a colossal failure at getting the big-ticket fascist stuff done the first time around. So vote for him again!

"Move homeless people to outlying 'tent cities’"

Again, this is just his standard real-estate tycoon fixation on property values and how all these poor people around here are lowering them. He famously complained about unhoused people outside expensive buildings. The "people in those buildings pay tremendous taxes," but "all of a sudden they have tents. Hundreds and hundreds of tents and people living at the entrance to their office building," he ranted back in 2019.

So his solution to poor people ruining rich people's office building experiences is, of course, concentration camps. In Donald's America, you'll be able to call a hotline to report a disheveled person on the sidewalk outside your place of work, and authorities will come to take that person away to the "outer skirts of the various cities" where they can get the tent-based care they need.

"You don't have time to build buildings, you can do that later," he opines.

Concentration camps for the Americans wealthy property owners don't want to see. I'm mostly curious as to how the democracy-hostile and fascism-curious current Supreme Court would justify that brazenly creep-ass-strongman proposal. There's little doubt that Justice Samuel Alito would reach back to 1600s Britain to assert that, actually, there are 400 years of history that says wealthy people can imprison whoever the hell they want.

"Deploy federal force against crime, unrest, and protests"

Yeah, been there before. The Lafayette Square approach to policing: If regular law enforcement is encumbered by too many rules restricting who they can use violence against and for what reasons—and heaven knows American law enforcement is famously reluctant to use violence against people who aren't doing actual crimes—then call up your hand-picked attorney general and have them send some prison riot teams to crack skulls. Or, of course, the National Guard.

Fascism, then. Republicanism has been going here for a long time. Sen. Tom Cotton and Bill Barr and innumerable state Republicans with strong opinions about protesters have been so noisy in advocating that those who protest against the regime be met with a military or paramilitary response that Trump's not breaking any new ground here. Yeah, he wants to be able to hurt and kill protesters. It's one of his big things.

It was also a central part of his coup plans; the Trump coup team hoped that Mike Pence could be convinced to throw the election into chaos, upon which time Trump would declare emergency powers under the Insurrection Act to snuff out whatever protests of the stolen election developed, and/or use the military to literally seize the voting machines. A fully fascist plan. Trump is still pissed that it didn't work.

"Strip job protections for federal workers"

Yeah, that's a pretty banal subhead for Trump's actual proposal here. Trump and his fascist allies (see: Ginni Thomas) have long been enamored with the notion that whenever one of Captain Bigbrain's ideas lands with a thud, or whenever the U.S. Constitution and other laws prevent Captain Bigbrain from doing something—like executing drug dealers on sight or putting disheveled-looking people in government camps—Trump's failures were actually because of a "deep state" conspiracy to make him fail. Ginni Thomas, coup supporter, is all about this theory. And Trump, in his first term, focused obsessively on firing any government official or watchdog who reported his possible crimes, undercut one of his favored lies, or was unwilling to assist in corrupt acts.

It's not just Trump; it’s all of his orbiting Republican allies who propose a new solution that would solve many of their past problems with, you know, being caught doing illegal stuff. They want the ability to fire any government worker they want to, through the entirety of the federal government. No more rules preventing presidents from wholesale firings to clear out entire agencies so that their own sycophants can be installed into every last role.

So, fascism again then. This is basically the Russian model as well; in Vladimir Putin's Russia, all jobs are allocated not according to competence or expertise but by loyalty. Putin rewards his most reliable sycophants with the most powerful jobs, which each loyalist then uses to siphon as much money as possible into their own accounts; those sycophants, in turn, hire only those willing to help them in their corruption, in exchange for their own corrupt schemes being overlooked, ad nauseam all the way through government.

In a government based on willingness to overlook corruption, corruption becomes the primary task of government. When an emboldened and sycophantic-to-the-point-of-delusion Russia declared a new war of conquest, it turned out much of Russia's military had simply ceased to meaningfully exist. The food the troops were to bring with them consisted of long-expired rations. Warehouses of materials turned out to be imaginary. From vehicle maintenance to secure communications plans, the money that was to be used to keep the military running had gotten siphoned away to the point of logistical collapse.

This is an absolute dream scenario for the likes of Donald J. Golfboy: A government in which he gets to do anything he wants, punish whoever he wants, and take whatever he wants, and a government that allows him to control who else gets similar spoils. And if it later turns out that all the crookedness has led the country to ruin, then who the hell cares, baby, because he got to be the one doing it.

It's also now standard-issue Republicanism. From the first impeachment onward, the party declared en masse that Republican leaders could absolutely do crooked things and get away with it. Republican Party rhetoric, both from the party itself and individual lawmakers, is currently centered on vows of revenge against whichever government agents, witnesses, or whistleblowers dared to catch Trump doing yet another crime. This has been the theme of Republican governance for a decade: Find the names of those who testify to Republican corruption. Expose them. Eliminate them.

"Eliminate the Education Department"

Right, the revenge-for-segregation thing that's animated the right for a half-century. Trump doesn't give a damn, he's just jumping on the latest bandwagon. Some hack wrote this into his speech, and he said it, and it got applause from the angry racist base, so he's probably going to say it some more. Didn't do it the first time around. Was willing to attempt a coup that resulted in deaths, but wasn't able to do that. Because it would require work. Lots of work. Donnie Two-Scoops does not do work.

"Restrict voting to one day using paper ballots"

Ha ha ha ha ha—yeah, uh, again, it's more than just that. Donald Trump, supergenius big-brain uberdude from planet Golfcheat, convinced himself the election machines were all rigged against him in order to block out any hint that maybe America just wanted to scrape him out of the Oval Office because they didn't like him. He convince himself absentee ballots were all rigged against him for the same reason. And that there was a conspiracy by elections officials. And China. And possibly Italy, and a dead South American guy, and Hillary Clinton, and the guy who designed the ramp that Donald Trump once had to gingerly inch down, tarnishing his big-muscle superguy image.

Trump wants to get rid of voting by mail, obliging everyone to vote at the polling places. Republicans, historically, have made a game of under-allocating booths and staff to polling places in Democratic-majority districts, making it far more difficult (or even impossible) to vote if you're in one of those blue places. Republicans used to love voting by mail because their base skews much older and is less mobile; they now absolutely hate mail-in ballots because, during the pandemic, there was a surge of pandemic-conscious younger voters who took advantage of the same system—which erased, and then some, what Republicans thought was a built-in party advantage. So now it’s gotta go; it can’t be controlled, Republicans have learned, the same way physical polling places can be controlled.

Oh, and Donald Trump thinks it's a conspiracy against him if the person who's leading in the first released results loses that lead in later counts. And he thinks it's a conspiracy against him if the counting isn't done before he gets sleepy and wants to go to bed.

Oh, and Trump's Republican "Big Lie" believers want every ballot to be hand-counted. Hundreds of millions. Gotta do it by midnight, though, or it's crooked. Whatever didn’t get counted by midnight is automatically crooked. No, we won’t be allocating any more counters to the job; that’s much too expensive.

Guess what: If Republicans accomplish all of this, and their latest Dear Leader figure still doesn't win, they're still going to say the vote was crooked. That's why Republican lawmakers in the various most-crooked states have already passed new laws giving Republican officials the power to challenge whatever vote totals they don't personally like, and the power to take over the ballot-counting in places that might produce such unpleasant results.

All of this has gone far beyond one man's uncontrollable narcissism. Trump didn't get the job the first time around because of his supposed promises or claims that he was smarter than every scientist, military general, and world leader on the planet. He got it because he was a mean, blustery asshole willing to spout more hate more openly than anyone else on the debate stage—and Republican voters absolutely love that stuff. They don't want good government; they want government that will punish their enemies while elevating their own paranoias.

Trump could drop dead tomorrow, and the "let's corral the poor into death camps" plank of Republicanism would probably wither away. But the Republican Party moves to take control of election counts, identify and fire government workers who are not loyal to the latest party proclamations,  and meet protests against them by sending in military forces to crush those protests? Those are here to stay.

That's standard-issue Republicanism now. All of the candidates will be promoting that. DeSantis, Hawley, Cruz, Graham, Cotton, McCarthy, Abbott—all of them. It's carved into the movement now, and there's no evidence it can be scraped back out. They happen across the fascist solutions to each of their problems, and adopt the fascist solutions as their answers.

As for how it got this way—how we got a base that no longer cared whether government functions, had no interest in policies or in facts but would instead eagerly identify with all of a narcissistic conman's most guttural burps of paranoia and anger—well, that's a different question. Ask the Murdoch family; they probably could run you through the whole history.

RELATED STORIES:

Top Republican candidates in some battleground states are running to overturn the next election

Republicans promise chaos and lawlessness if they get Congress back in November

Trump and his media allies are stoking a civil war

Trump breaks the law, so Republicans say it's the law that needs to go—and the agents who caught him

'We will not stand by and we will not stand down': Armed Trump backers protest at Phoenix FBI office

House Republicans Demand DOJ, FBI Preserve Documents In Relation To FBI Raid On Trump

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

House Republicans on Monday sent letters to top officials in the Biden administration demanding they preserve and hand over documents related to the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

Eighteen Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent the letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.

“The FBI’s unprecedented raid of President Trump’s residence is a shocking escalation of the Biden Administration’s weaponization of law-enforcement resources against its political opponents,” each letter begins.

“The American people deserve transparency and accountability from our most senior law-enforcement officials in the executive branch,” it continues. “We will settle for nothing but your complete cooperation with our inquiry.”

The correspondence demands that each department preserve “all documents and communications” related to the raid and produce them to the committee “no later than 5:00 p.m. on August 29, 2022.”

RELATED: Republicans Demand Garland Brief Homeland Security On Trump FBI Raid, Slam ‘Politically Motivated Witch Hunt’

Republicans Demand FBI, DOJ Preserve and Release Documents

The letters from House Republicans to Biden administration officials demanding they preserve and release documents related to the unprecedented raid on the President’s main political opponent are more symbolic for the time being.

The GOP does not have subpoena power as the minority in the House of Representatives.

Still, the move signals an intensification of possible probes into the matter should the GOP win back the House following the midterms.

The letters come just days after Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) vowed that the Senate would investigate the raid should Republicans wrestle back control in November.

“If I’m in the majority, and I’m Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, again, I intend to pursue all of these things until we get to the bottom of it,” Grassley told Breitbart News over the weekend.

RELATED: ‘Preserve Your Documents’: McCarthy Threatens AG Merrick Garland With Investigation After FBI Raid Of Trump’s Home

Demand a Briefing From DHS

Republican lawmakers late last week demanded a Homeland Security briefing by the FBI, Department of Justice, and National Archives following news that Garland gave a personal greenlight to the raid on Trump’s home.

But, as Fox News host Jesse Waters pointed out to Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – Republicans like to talk a lot about what they’re going to do regarding the unprecedented harassment directed at Trump, but will they actually take action?

Democrats certainly would. They threatened impeachment for months upon months then acted when they found the first opening. Then they did it again.

And quite obviously, the harassment has never ended.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was one of the first to call for a probe into Garland’s actions, saying on the very day of the raid that he had “seen enough.”

“Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar,” he wrote.

Democrats have countered the GOP’s efforts with Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) sending their own letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.

That letter seeks a national security damage assessment on the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.

Trump has claimed all documents in his Mar-a-Lago home were “declassified” and insisted officials “didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it at any time.”

The FBI under the direction of Garland fetched the documents – including ancillary material such as Trump’s passports that they have since returned – and now the Democrats are going to use them to investigate the former President yet again.

Do Republicans understand they need to be equally as relentless in order to stop this level of corruption?

POLL: Do you think Republicans will actually do anything about the FBI raid of Trump's home?

By voting, you agree to receive email communication from The Political Insider. Click HERE for more information.

Now is the time to support and share the sources you trust.
The Political Insider ranks #3 on Feedspot’s “100 Best Political Blogs and Websites.”

The post House Republicans Demand DOJ, FBI Preserve Documents In Relation To FBI Raid On Trump appeared first on The Political Insider.

Liz Cheney approaches likely primary loss with defiance

Posted on (Updated by Mike Lillis

Rep. Liz Cheney may be about to lose her day job. If so, she’s totally OK with that.

Cheney, a third-term Wyoming Republican, is charging into Tuesday’s primary in the Cowboy State defiantly embracing the very message that’s sparked the conservative backlash brewing to oust her: Namely, that former President Trump, with his baseless claims of a “stolen” election, poses an existential threat to the country’s democratic foundations and should be barred from holding future office.

That argument, combined with Cheney’s national prominence, has made her both the public face of the anti-Trump movement and a pariah in the eyes of the MAGA faithful, including those in ruby-red Wyoming where the former president remains wildly popular.

Some recent polls have Cheney’s challenger — an election denier named Harriet Hageman — leading by almost 30 points. 

The Cheney name has been revered in conservative Wyoming circles for decades; the seat she holds was once held by her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney. And two years ago, the thought of her losing that seat would have been laughed out of Laramie.

Then came last year’s attack on the Capitol — a riot aimed at overturning Trump’s election defeat. Since then, Cheney has pursued the 45th president with a crusader’s zeal, becoming one of only 10 House Republicans to support Trump’s second impeachment, which deemed him responsible for inciting the insurrection, and then joining the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the rampage. 

It was then, political experts say, that Cheney decided the fight against Trump and his election lies was more important than keeping her job in Congress.

“She's almost certainly toast,” said David Barker, a political scientist at American University. “My guess is that she knew that the second she decided to really join the Jan. 6 committee and pursue the president in that way.”

“She hasn't just been kind of a passive member of the committee,” Barker added. “She's been really leading the whole charge and doing so in the most provocative and high-profile ways.”

Indeed, Cheney, as vice chair of the select committee, has been the most prominently featured figure throughout the eight public hearings the panel has staged this summer. And heading into the final stretch of what appears to be a doomed campaign for a fourth term, Cheney is not dodging the anti-Trump sentiment that’s put her in hot water with Wyoming voters. She’s amplifying it. 

“America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious — it preys on those who love their country,” Cheney said in a closing-argument campaign video released Thursday. “It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.

“This is Donald Trump’s legacy, but it cannot be the future of our nation.”

Cheney is 56 years old, and her own legacy — along with her political future — remains uncertain. But this much is clear: She’s gambled both on the notion that, in challenging the most popular figure in her own party, she can prevent him from becoming president once again. In that campaign, she’s essentially arguing that the GOP needs saving from itself — and she’ll either be the one to do it, or fall hard trying.

“She faced a binary choice between doing what she thought was right and necessary, after Jan. 6, and continuing her political career in the Republican Party,” said Bill Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “And unlike most politicians, she made a clean and honorable choice. And she's obviously prepared to take the consequences.”

In a last-ditch effort to gain ground in Tuesday’s primary contest, Cheney last week aired a public endorsement from her father. Appearing in a cowboy hat and questioning Trump’s masculinity, Dick Cheney called the former president “a coward” who “tried to steal the last election using lies and violence.”

“In our nation's 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he says in the minute-long ad. 

Still, 70 percent of Wyoming voters chose Trump in 2020 — the highest number of any state in the country. And even the appeals of a state institution like Dick Cheney aren’t expected to save his daughter in Tuesday’s race. The experts say the simple reason is that the GOP, as old-guard power brokers like Dick Cheney knew it, no longer exists. 

“Donald Trump executed a hostile and irreversible takeover of the Republican Party,” Galston said. “The Reagan party that appealed to so many of the now middle-aged or even aging Republican conservatives in the 1980s and '90s is gone. It's not coming back.” 

Cheney is hardly alone among GOP lawmakers suffering politically for clashing publicly with Trump over the Jan. 6 attack. Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year, only two are in line to return in the next Congress. Four others are retiring, while three more lost their primaries to Trump-endorsed conservatives who backed his false election claims. 

Cheney, of the 10, is the last outstanding race, and the outcome appears certain. 

“Yeah, he won — in the short term, at least,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of the impeachment-supporting retirees, acknowledged to WGN-TV in Chicago last week. “There’s no use in pretending somehow I scored some major victory and saved the party.” 

To Trump’s allies, the former president remains a heroic figure — the single most electrifying force in the GOP who launched the populist movement that toppled Hillary Clinton and continues to fuel expectations that Republicans will flip control of the House in November’s midterm elections. In that light, Cheney, Kinzinger and the other Trump critics are seen as apostates to the larger cause of winning power.

In February, the Republican National Committee took the remarkable step of voting to censure both Cheney and Kinzinger for their involvement in the Jan. 6 investigation. It said the two were “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

Cheney’s likely defeat on Tuesday has raised plenty of speculation about potential next steps, including the possibility that she’d make a presidential run of her own in 2024 — an idea she has not ruled out. 

Still, her success in such a contest would hinge squarely on the collapse of Trump’s popularity within the party, which is likely to endure, some experts said, longer than Cheney would prefer. 

“My sense is that if it is [her plan], she's going to have a long wait,” Galston said. “I don't think that Donald Trump supporters will ever forgive her, nor do I think they're going away. 

“Where else would they go?”

Caroline Vakil contributed.

Trump surprises some Republicans with endorsements

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) first heard that he had been endorsed by former President Trump when he looked at his phone.

“I got a text message: 'You've been endorsed,’” Donalds told The Hill. 

The first-term lawmaker was surprised, but not shocked. He has been a supporter of Trump and has a good relationship with him. 

Republican candidates in contested primaries this year have lobbied hard for Trump's backing, and most who get his blessing have gone on to win the party's nomination.

But Trump’s endorsements of incumbents have often come without members seeking them, a key indication that he is running up his primary endorsement success rate by putting his stamp of approval on members almost certain to win their races.

Trump touts the success of his endorsement record in Republican primaries, his record serving as a measure of his influence on the party. He recently flaunted his “Perfect Records in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, and Missouri.”

Trump has been a kingmaker in a number of key primary races, with bold endorsements in Senate primaries in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and with some revenge challengers to House Republicans who voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill.

“Trump used his own metrics to determine who he supports. It's been pretty successful,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). “The numbers don't lie.”

Yet in keeping with his pattern as president, Trump regularly inflates his numbers. He bragged on Truth Social after Tennessee’s primary that he had a “Perfect Record of Endorsements, 8-0.” Left unsaid was that all were incumbents, of which six ran unopposed, and the other two did not have serious challengers.

Conversations with more than a dozen House Republican members who spoke to The Hill suggested that it is normal for Trump to bestow an endorsement without a member reaching out first.

“I did not seek it,” Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) said of getting a Trump endorsement ahead of his primary. “I just was going about my business, you know, campaigning and representing my district. But he reached out, and — through one of his political people — and offered an endorsement.”

After notification that Trump wanted to endorse them, the former president often calls the member and has a brief chat before the official “Save America” endorsement release, several House GOP members said.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said that he did not seek endorsements because he was running in an uncontested primary but was happy to accept one from Trump.

“He gave the greatest Trump line ever, by the way,” Armstrong said, when he called the former president back after missing his initial pre-endorsement announcement call. “Like, ‘I'm sorry, Mr. President, I missed your call.’ He says, ‘Don't worry. The call is temporary, that voicemail’s forever.’”

Norman and Reps. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Michael Cloud (R-Texas) all similarly said that Trump had reached out to them.

House GOP leadership has been involved in facilitating some of the endorsements.

Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) said that someone in House GOP leadership gave him a “heads up” that the endorsement from Trump would be coming.

And some incumbent GOP members, meanwhile, have reached out to Trump this year. 

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said he sought an endorsement from Trump through House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his political team. Guthrie had a phone chat with Trump before his endorsement was released about a week before the primary, which he then won by 60 points.

Now out of office and looking to retain a hold on the party, Trump has made more formal endorsements in primary races than ever before.

By the end of August 2020, Trump had endorsed 111 candidates in House, Senate, and governor’s races, with 109 of those advancing to the general election, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis at the time.

He is running well ahead of that number in primaries this cycle, with 20 gubernatorial endorsements, 21 Senate endorsements, and 156 House endorsements so far, an analysis by The Hill found — not counting those who dropped out before the primary election, who Trump un-endorsed, or his dual “ERIC” endorsement in the Missouri GOP Senate primary, where state Attorney General Eric Schmitt defeated former Gov. Eric Greitens.

Some of Trump’s endorsements were a clear attempt to clear the field in key races, such as when he urged “JUST ONE CANDIDATE” to run against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). But most of those were incumbent members who were likely to win renomination regardless of a Trump endorsement.

Trump has backed 134 incumbent House members, accounting for more than half the GOP conference. And 66 candidates that Trump endorsed in House races ran or are running in uncontested primaries, or in a nonpartisan primary without any other Republican candidates on the ballot.

Trump's team asserted that his endorsement helps Republicans have larger victories.

“The power of President Trump’s endorsement hasn’t just resulted in massive wins for Republicans across the nation, it also has meant bigger margins of victory and an ever-growing movement for the future," Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said in a statement. "Every candidate who earns the endorsement of President Trump benefits tremendously and has been gracious in their appreciation for his support."

A couple of the endorsements indicate a willingness to bury old hatchets.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) received Trump’s endorsement a week before his primary. That came more than two years after a testy phone call between the two men.

“The last conversation we had was on my cell phone in the Speaker's Lobby on March 27th of 2020. He was upset,” Massie said.

Massie tried to force a roll call vote on the CARES Act coronavirus stimulus bill, sending lawmakers scrambling to get back to Washington to avoid a delay in passing the legislation. The move enraged Trump, who called for Massie to be thrown out of the Republican Party.

But in his statement endorsing Massie, Trump called him “a first-rate Defender of the Constitution.”

Massie is one of 36 incumbent Republicans, 26 in the House and 10 in the Senate, endorsed by Trump who did not vote to object to certification of electoral votes from Arizona or Pennsylvania on Jan. 6.

Trump has endorsed just one incumbent member who voted in favor of creating a bipartisan, bicameral commission on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack: Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.). 

Gimenez, who said he sought Trump’s endorsement, talked with the former president about his vote for the commission.

“I explained to him why I voted for the first one and not the second one. The second one I consider to be illegitimate,” Gimenez said. “So, we had a good conversation about that.”

Challengers to incumbent House Republicans have attacked those who voted in favor of the commission in primaries this year. Republicans blocked the measure in the Senate, prompting creation of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6. Reps. Cheney and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) were the only Republicans to vote for the ultimate panel’s creation.

The biggest line in the sand for Trump appears to be voting to impeach. He stayed out of some races where votes for the Jan. 6 commission became a line of attack, such as the cases of Reps. Dusty Johnson (S.D.), Michael Guest (Texas), and Van Taylor (R-Texas), who was forced into a runoff and ended his campaign after the primary over an affair scandal.

Many Republican candidates hoping to win Trump’s endorsement flocked to Mar-a-Lago ahead of the primary season, hosting events or hoping to get some face time with the former president. Nevada gubernatorial candidate Michele Fiore even purchased ads early this year on Fox News in Palm Beach, Fla., hoping that the former president was watching. She was unsuccessful, with Trump later endorsing Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo.

But the best indicator of whether a candidate would win a Trump endorsement was usually if he or she looked likely to win.

More than 96 percent of Trump-endorsed House candidates who have had primaries so far won their primaries, not counting those who dropped out before the election.

Trump un-endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) in the GOP Senate primary and then endorsed Katie Britt, who had overtaken him in the polls. He made an early endorsement last September for Michigan state Rep. Steve Carra against pro-impeachment Rep. Fred Upton, but redistricting scrambled the map and put Upton up against Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), to whom Trump then switched his endorsement. Upton later said he would not run for reelection.

A large number of Trump’s endorsements were announced in the days before primary elections, with some of those candidates not worried about losing.

But that hasn’t put a damper on incumbent members’ thrill of getting the endorsement.

“Anytime you have an endorsement from a President of the United States, that's really cool,” said Donalds.

Paige Kupas, Stephen Neukam and Zach Wendling contributed research.

--Updated at 6:39 a.m.