Primary season is well underway and the Republican losers keep piling up. By losers – because there are so many possible definitions – I’m referring to those who announced they’d be resigning their current seats for a different job, to run for higher office or because they were forced out.
Texas kicked off the season with its primary on March 1. First up: George Bush, son of Jeb Bush, following in his father’s footsteps. George is currently the Land Commissioner but only until the end of this year because he had to resign this seat to run for Attorney General. He lost.
Louis Gohmert resigned his House seat to also run in that same primary, with the same result. For many years the man considered the stupidest member of Congress will vacate his seat at the end of this year, leaving the title to be fought over by whichever GOP fools manage to make it in November.
Incidentally, incumbent Ken Paxton won the Texas GOP primary for AG, probably because he’s committed more crimes than any of the other candidates. Republican voters do like their representatives to have lots of criminal experience.
The West Virginia primary was held on May 10. It saw off House Republican David McKinley who failed in his bid for renomination. If you’re not familiar with him, here’s a short bio:
▪Voted against the American Rescue Plan and the Violence Against Women Act
▪Voted against medals for USCP and against a January 6 Commission
▪Voted against the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act and the Assault Weapons Ban.
Also on May 10, Nebraska held its primary and ousted NE-1 incumbent Jeff Fortenberry after his conviction on three charges for repeatedly lying to and misleading FBI agents investigating illegal campaign contributions from a foreign billionaire. But Jeff won’t have much time to worry about being jobless; he’ll be too busy working off 320 hours of community service.
Another dishonourable mention is Tom Reed (formerly NY-23) who resigned suddenly on May 10 amid sexual misconduct accusations.
Leading up to the North Carolina primary on May 17, a faction of the GOP turned on Madison Cawthorn to ensure he lost his bid for renomination. While he’ll remain in the House until the end of this year, Cawthorn has gone completely silent since his loss which has come as a welcome relief to Democrats as well as the GOP faction that doxed him.
Who is in that faction? The media isn’t telling. However, given that the anti-Cawthorn operation was launched after his indiscretions regarding GOP orgies, the obvious suspects are the known party animals. There was a definite hint in Cawthorn’s remarks where he refers to someone aged 60-70 and adds,
…you know, I look at all these people, a lot of them that I’ve always looked up to through my life, always paid attention to politics, guys that, you know.
The biggest party animal is Roger Stone who is 69. The Dirty Trickster, a nickname he gave himself, has a mean streak and wouldn’t hesitate to take out any youngster who threatened him and his entourage. In his Stone’s fan zone, there’s Matt Gaetz and in Gaetz’s wake, there’s Marge Greene and Jim Jordan. Since Cawthorn also mentioned cocaine, we might as well include Ronny Jackson who is known as The Candyman. There’ll be others too but those are the first five that come to mind.
It’s onto Alabama where Mo Brooks resigned his House seat for a run at the Senate. Trump endorsed him and Brooks was feeling mighty confident about his chances until Trump rescinded his support because Mo shied away from Trump’s Big Lie. On primary day, May 24, Brooks came in second to the lesser-known Katie Britt, a former aide to the outgoing Senator. But, in spite of being 15 points ahead, Britt had failed to reach the 50%+ mark so a runoff was set for June 21.
This time, Mo lost by a whopping 26 points! That’s landslide territory! Bye-bye, Mo.
On the same day as the Alabama primary, Jody Hice discovered that his decision to resign his House seat and run for Secretary of State was not the success he was expecting. He thought that after Brad Raffensperger’s run-in with Trump over a little matter of “finding 11,780 votes”, he’d easily knock over the incumbent in the primary. Georgia’s Republican voters had other ideas and renominated Raffensperger, leaving Hice out in the cold and out of a job come January 2023.
Are you still with me? Good. Hang in there, this is a longer list than I thought it would be!
In Mississippi, Rep Steve Palazzo lost in a primary runoff on June 28. According to Roll Call,
Palazzo faced ethical scrutiny for allegedly spending campaign money on personal expenses, asking official staff to perform personal and campaign-related tasks and misusing his position to boost his brother’s Naval career.
The allegations against Palazzo surfaced after a 2019 primary challenger noticed irregularities in his campaign finance reports and hired a private investigator, who turned his findings over to the Campaign Legal Center.
Palazzo lost to a county sheriff.
Tom Rice of South Carolina was ousted in his Republican primary, apparently because he voted to impeach Trump over the Jan 6 insurrection. Media excitedly reported that he was the first of ten Republicans to lose their primaries because of their impeachment votes.
However, of the remaining nine, only one other, Peter Meijer (MI-3), has lost his primary. Four of them – Adam Kinzinger (IL-16), Anthony Gonzalez (OH-16), Fred Upton (MI-6) and John Katko (NY-24) – announced they’ll retire at the end of the current term, and Liz Cheney’s primary isn’t for another two weeks.
In Illinois, Rodney Davis (CD-13) found himself redistricted into CD15 with fellow incumbent Marie Miller so it was inevitable one of them would lose and the loser was Davis.
Lee Zeldin (NY-1) announced his House seat resignation to run for Governor. He did win the GOP primary for that position but I’m including him in this list because he’s going to lose to Democrat Kathy Hochul who is a formidable opponent.
Now we come to the only female in this list of losers, Vicky Hartzler. She announced she’d be resigning her MO-4 House seat in expectations of winning the Missouri primary for the US Senate. She fell woefully short of her goal but at least she’ll get a second chance when Josh Hawley, Missouri’s other senator, is indicted for his Jan 6 crimes and forced to resign in disgrace.
Billy Long (currently MO-7 but not for much longer) also lost in the same Senate primary as Hartzler and fared even worse with only 5% of the vote.
Devin Nunes resigned his seat on the first day of the year to work for Trump’s Truth Social as its CEO. After a wobbly start, the social media platform is heading for a woeful end. Truth Social’s company is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for what is known to lawyers as a pump-and-dump scheme. Like fellow former House member, Mark Meadows, Nunes is soon likely to find himself out of a job.
That brings the current total to sixteen with 15 states yet to hold their primaries.
But we can’t rely on enough Republicans to get themselves ousted from office. We all need to pitch in and help Democrats to crush them in November! Adopt one or more Dem candidates from the #AdoptADem lists of those vying to flip red seats blue. Check out Field Team 6 on Twitter at @fieldteam_6 or their website fieldteam6.org where you’ll also find Meidas Touch Picks of the Week. Get involved. Be a part of the Blue Tsunami!
All these rethug House members who gave up their safe seats to run for other offices must have drunk their own kool-aid. Mo Brooks, in particular, tried to run for Senate before and lost to Roy “Pedo” Moore in the primary. If you can’t beat that guy, maybe rethink your plans. Louis Gohmert, afraid of losing his title as dumbest member of the House due to Boboert, MTG et al, deciding to run for AG was another bonehead move.
Well, Brooks might very well have won his race against Moore *IF* the accusations against Moore had come out before the primary, instead of after the run-off. Moore’s being in the general special election after the accusations were made turned off enough Republicans from showing up that Doug Jones managed to win.
Joe Biden kills terrorists.
MAGA’s Trump golfs with terrorists.
Any questions?
“Louis Gohmert resigned his House seat to also run in that same primary, with the same result. For many years the man considered the stupidest member of Congress will vacate his seat at the end of this year, leaving the title to be fought over by whichever GOP fools manage to make it in November.”
‘Stupidest member of Congress’
This is set to be the most tightly contested Republican contest ever.