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When Peter Meijer voted to impeach Donald Trump, breaking with nearly all of his Republican colleagues in one of his first acts as a newly elected member of Congress, Democrats praised him as the kind of principled conservative his party and the nation desperately needed.

But this election season, as Meijer fought for his political survival against a Trump-endorsed election denier in a primary contest for a Michigan House seat, Democrats twisted the knife.

It is part of a risky, and some say downright dangerous, strategy Democrats are using in races for House, Senate and governor: spending money in Republican primaries to elevate far-right candidates over more mainstream conservatives in the hope that voters will recoil from the election-denying radicals in November.

In Michigan, the plan worked for now. Meijer lost after the House Democrats official campaign arm spent $425,000 to elevate Meijers opponent, John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official who asserted, falsely, that Joe Bidens victory was simply mathematically impossible.

It is impossible to know what impact the Democrats ad had on the race, but cost more than the Gibbs campaign raised.

Now, as the primary season nears its conclusion and the political battlefield takes shape, Democrats will soon learn whether the gambit was successful. While election deniers have prevailed in Republican primaries across the country without any aid from Democrats, critics say the effort at the very least complicates the case that their priority is to safeguard the future of American democracy.

It is immoral and dangerous, said Richard Hasen, a UCLA law professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project. He said the risk of miscalculation was great, particularly at a moment when the January 6 committee is attempting to show just how destructive Trumps stolen election myth has been for American democracy.

Its hard for Democrats to take the high road when theyre cynically boosting some of these candidates in order to try to gain an advantage in the general election, he said. That doesnt mean that what Democrats are doing is as bad as what Republicans are doing, but it still makes it objectionable.

Meijers defeat on Tuesday inflamed an already sharp debate taking place within the party over the potential perils of the tactic, especially as Democrats warns of the grave risks posed by these very Republicans. But others argue its a necessary and calculated gamble in pursuit of keeping a dangerous party from winning power.

If you let Republicans back in power, it is going to be those Maga Republicans who are going to take away your rights, your benefits and your freedom, Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said, defending the strategy in a recent interview on MSNBCs Morning Joe. We need to stop it.

The presidents party historically loses ground during the midterms. Decades-high inflation and widespread frustration with leaders in Washington have dragged Joe Bidens approval ratings to record lows, hampering Democrats efforts to preserve their razor-thin majorities in Congress.

The ads run by Democrats and their allies are ostensibly scripted as an attack highlighting a candidates loyalty to Trump or their conservative views on abortion, for example. In Michigan, Democrats charged that Gibbs was handpicked by Trump to run for Congress and too conservative for the district. But when aired during a competitive primary, the message is intended to appeal to the Republican base.

The voters in the Republican primary had agency, said Bill Saxton, the Democratic party chair in Kent county. They had two choices.

Saxton, whose county is situated in the west Michigan district, said it was now time to set aside the bickering over tactics and focus on the real threat: Gibbss extremism.

In 2020, Gibbs could not win Senate confirmation to direct Trumps Office of Personnel Management, partly due to past comments he made, among them calling Democrats the party of Islam, gender-bending, anti-police, u racist!.

Democrats involvement in Republican primaries extends beyond a single Michigan House race.

In Maryland, the Democratic Governors Association boosted Dan Cox, a far-right figure who attended the January 6 rally and called Vice-President Mike Pence a traitor for not stopping the congressional certification of Bidens victory as Trump demanded. He won the partys nomination for governor. And in the Illinois Republican gubernatorial primary, Democrats spent millions of dollars to successfully promote the Trump-backed election denier. Both states lean Democratic and the party is reasonably confident their candidate will prevail.

The race causing the most angst among Democrats is in battleground Pennsylvania. There the campaign of the Democratic nominee for governor, Josh Shapiro, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in TV ads boosting the rightwing extremist Doug Mastriano far more than the candidate spent on his own campaign. Mastriano, who was already the frontrunner in the race, played a role in Trumps fake elector scheme and charted busses to the rally on January 6 that preceded the Capitol attack.

He is now the Republican nominee in a swing state where the chief elections officer is appointed by the governor. Polls show a competitive race.

The strategy hasnt always worked. In California, the incumbent Republican congressman David Valadao narrowly beat back a rightwing challenger despite Democratic spending on ads that highlighted his vote to impeach Trump.

And in Colorado, an outside group aligned with Democrats spent millions to boost an election denier who marched to the Capitol with rioters on January 6 over a relatively moderate Republican, businessman Joe ODea, in the race to take on the Democratic senator Michael Bennet. ODea won and now the resources Democrats spent to make him unpalatable to the Republican base could help him appeal to moderate and independent swing voters.

Meddling in the oppositions primary is hardly a new tactic. In 2012, Claire McCaskill, then a Democratic senator from Missouri, was facing a difficult re-election in a state where Barack Obama was deeply unpopular.

Surveying her prospective opponents, she devised a plan to lift the one she thought would be the weakest candidate, the far-right congressman Todd Akin. It worked: he won the primary, and she beat him decisively in the general after he infamously derailed his candidacy with a remark about legitimate rape.

But a decade later, she is urging caution.

This has to be done very carefully, she told NPR, adding: You also have to be careful what you wish for.

Maloney, the DCCC chair, has said the committee has a high bar for deploying the tactic, but insisted that there are races where it does make sense. Still, it has become an issue for Maloney in his own primary race, where his challenger, Alessandra Biaggi, has accused him of playing Russian roulette with our democracy.

Some Democrats have also expressed misgivings about punishing the few Republicans willing to stand up to Trump. David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic strategist and political adviser to Barack Obama, said Democrats involvement in Meijers primary makes them an instrument of Trumps vengeance.

In primaries across the country, support for Trumps Big Lie has become a litmus test for Republican candidates. And his endorsement, not Democrats hand, has proven to be one of the most decisive factors in who Republicans choose to be their standard bearer, said David Turner, a spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association.

In the Republican primaries where the group has spent money, he said Democrats had seized the opportunity to expose a prospective opponents extremism early and pre-emptively blunt any attempt by their nominee to pivot toward the mainstream during the general election.

Turner blamed Republican leaders for being too cowardly to tell their voters the truth about the 2020 election, a failure that he said has effectively ensured the success of election-deniers in the GOPs nominating contests.

In Pennsylvania, one of Mastrianos chief rivals was Lou Barletta, a signatory to the states fake elector scheme. And in Colorado, the more moderate candidate won the Republican primary for governor but then selected an election denier as a running mate.

There arent any Liz Cheneys running for governor, he said, referring to the Republican vice chair of the January 6 committee who may lose her primary over efforts to hold Trump accountable. In terms of gubernatorial candidates, the scary part is that all these Republicans are regurgitating the same Maga talking points.

There are also Democrats who argue that they are being held to a different standard than Republicans. They say Republicans often cheer their leaders for being ruthless while Democrats are often criticized for not playing political hardball, especially when the stakes are the highest.

As a result of gerrymandering, Republican dominance of the redistricting process and historical trends, Democrats see few opportunities to flip House seats this year. Michigans third congressional district is one of them.

Gibbs has downplayed the impact of the ads, and projected confidence that he can win in November.

Hillary Scholten, the Democrat who will face him in the Michigan House race and had no involvement in the DCCCs decision, called the focus on her partys tactics an unwanted distraction from the issues voters care most about.

Scholten said: It is the Republicans that decided who they wanted in their primary, and they chose John Gibbs, an extremist that embraces conspiracy theories and is way out of step with west Michigan. Im focused on making sure he doesnt get to Congress.

Her newly redrawn Michigan district is considerably more favorable to Democrats this cycle than it was two years ago. And many Democrats believe Scholten, a former justice department attorney in the Obama administration who came close to beating Meijer in 2020, would have been a strong contender in a rematch.

While many are confident she can beat Gibbs, those still haunted by Trumps against-the-odds victory in 2016 fear that in a banner year for Republicans, those deemed unelectable could be swept to power.

Republican voters will be blamed if any of these candidates are ultimately elected, Meijer wrote in an online essay published on the eve of the primary, but there is no doubt Democrats fingerprints will be on the weapon. We should never forget it.

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Democratic ads boosted extremists in Republican primaries. Was that wise? - The Guardian US

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott said on Sunday that it will be tough for GOP lawmakers to take back the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.

During an appearance on CBSs Face The Nation, moderator Margaret Brennan asked the Republican senator from Florida if it will get harder for Republicans to take control of the House and Senate chambers in November, citing victories for Democrats such as lower gas prices, the Inflation Reduction Act advancing and the military strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri last week.

In response, Scott pointed to critical race theory, the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, immigration and inflation, adding that his party has good candidates even though Democrats are outracing them at the moment.

I mean, they have to defend inflation, high gas prices, you know, the Afghan withdrawal, an open border, critical race theory, defund the police, thats what they have to defend because thats what Biden is known for, and thats what thats basically what Democrats are known for. Look its an election year. Its going to be a hard year, Scott told Brennan.

We have 21 Republicans up, only 14 Democrats. The Democrats are outracing us, but we have good candidates. And, I believe Joe Biden is going to be our key here.

Brennan also played Scott a clip of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) during a Fox News Sunday appearance saying he believes this years elections for control of the Senate will be very tight.

If things are so bad, then why is it going to be so tight for Republicans? Brennan asked Scott.

Well, first of all, we have very good candidates. I mean, the Democrats are raising good money. So weve got to be able to get our message out, so you know, we have to raise our money. We have to work hard, you know, we went through a lot of primaries, but I believe were gonna I believe were gonna win but its gonna be hard, Scott replied.

We got to raise your money, we got to work really hard for candidates- have to work really hard. Everybody is gonna to help our candidates, but Im optimistic.

Scott also voiced his opposition to the new Inflation Reduction Act, which on Sunday advanced to a vote in the Senate, saying the bill is a war on Medicare.

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Rick Scott says it will be tough for Republicans to take Senate in 2022 - The Hill

For Republicans, the hourslong ritual of the vote-a-rama has been a last-ditch effort to inflict political pain over a package they have no intention of supporting.

They railed against the hundreds of billions of dollars in climate spending, tried to siphon funds toward restricting immigration at the southwestern border and repeatedly attacked a $80 billion plan to beef up tax enforcement at the I.R.S.

And it became an opportunity to encourage those watching on C-SPAN, however small, to back Republicans in November.

If youre tired of paying high gas prices, then vote Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, concluded after pushing back against one amendment.

While Democrats have beaten back most of the Republican amendments, they have used a tricky procedural maneuver in some cases that allowed a few Democrats to vote in favor of changes that could help them politically without endangering passage of the final bill. For example, Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who is up for re-election in November, proposed a change to close the Medicaid gap in his state. Because Democrats set the bar for passage of the measure at 60 votes, Mr. Warnock could vote yes without any chance the amendment would be adopted.

Only one Republican challenge has prevailed: a move to strip a $35 insulin cap for private insurers as a violation of the strict rules governing the process. An effort to preserve that proposal fell short of the 60-vote threshold.

While Republicans proposed most of the amendments, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, tried to push the bill in a progressive direction and recapture some of the policy items in Mr. Bidens initial package that had been cut during negotiations.

Mr. Sanders forced a series of votes that included a cap on the costs of prescription drugs, extending the child care tax credit and establishing a civilian climate corps.

But his amendments failed by large margins: 1-99, 1-98 or 1-97. Many Democrats had pledged before the vote-a-rama to stick together as a voting bloc to preserve the delicate coalition of progressives and centrists brought together to support the legislation. The amendment votes put his colleagues in an uncomfortable position.

Come on, Bernie, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio could be heard muttering after he explained that he would oppose the inclusion of expanded payments to most families with children a policy he has long championed to protect the broader deal.

Mr. Sanders said he felt he had to push for the policies because Democrats could lose control of Congress in the midterm elections.

We dont know what the election results will be, he said. This could be actually the very last time in a long time that people are going to have the opportunity to vote on child tax care credit.

Stephanie Lai contributed reporting.

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Democrats Hold Off Republican Amendments, And Some of Their Own - The New York Times

There is no better test this year of whether Republicans are making substantial inroads with Latino voters, once solidly Democratic, than Nevada.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), the only Latina in the U.S. Senate, is the partys most endangered incumbent. Hispanics comprise as much as 20 percent of the Nevada electorate. She needs to win them almost 2 to 1 to stave off Republican challenger, Adam Laxalt, the former state attorney general and grandson of Nevada political legend, the late Paul Laxalt, who was a governor and a U.S. Senator.

Republicans, including Donald Trump in 2020, have cut into Democrats advantage with Hispanic voters, particularly non-college educated males.

We always thought that if we got more Latinos to vote, the Democratic vote would grow exponentially, notes Ana Iparraguirre, who has studied the data on Latino voting for the Democratic polling firm, GBAO Strategies. In 2020 we got more Latinos to vote, but support for Democrats did not grow.

There is a debate using different data and analyses over how much of a shift there has been to Republicans, and why. The Atlantics Ron Brownstein, who has followed this as closely and carefully as any journalist, concludes: The best evidence in polling and election results suggests the claim of a fundamental shiftamong non-college educated Latino voters is, at best, wildly premature. At a minimum, he suggests, there is a small shift.

Republicans have argued that the patriotism and cultural conservatism of Latinos will redound to the GOPs advantage. Thats questionable. Latinos generally mirror other Democrats in views on social issues like abortion and guns, says Michelle Mayorga, also a GBAO strategist. Many Catholic Hispanics are pro-choice on abortion.

However, Democrats have been hurt when linked, often unfairly, with the slogans pushed by the small left wing of the party, such as defund the police or open borders. In Florida, especially with second- and third-generation voters with roots in South American countries, charges that Democrats are socialistsresonated.

Moreover, Ms. Iparraguirre says, while the big social issues arent hurting, some of the woke stuff, like using gender neutral Latinx may be: This is definitely not something they self-identify as.

The main driver of any change, most exerts venture, is economics. Most working-class Latinos did well during the Trump years, at least before COVID hit. That apparently affected some voting habits.

Republicans are counting on an economy with raging inflation this year. The heaviest concentrations of Latino votes are in large states: California, Texas and Florida, as well as New Mexico. Yet they comprise as much as 4 percent to 5 percent in places like Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin and could make the difference in tight races.

The swing states with the largest Latino vote are Arizona and Nevada, both with competitive Senate, gubernatorial and down-ballot contests this November. In Nevada, the GOP is encouraged by voter registration gains that have cut into the Democrats advantage.

Laxalt, predictably, focuses heavily on inflation and high gas prices. These really hurt the sizeable working-class citizens in this geographically large state.

The Republicans also are making a concerted effort to cut into the Democrats support among Latinos by running Spanish language commercials and with a dedicated Latinos for Laxalt organization.

Republicans may have been handed another break with fissures among the Democrats. The Nevada Democratic Party, led by the late Sen. Harry Reid, used to be one of the most effective state parties in the country. Last year, the left-wing Democratic Socialists staged a coup, and they now run the party. The former and more formidable faction has set up a parallel organization.

Abortion may offset some GOP advantages on the economy. Three decades ago, Nevada voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum protecting the right to abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy; after that, it is protected only if the mothers life or health is endangered.

Cortez Masto is strongly pro-choice, while Laxalt, previously an anti-abortion hard liner, is equivocating and squirming. She is making abortion rights a campaign centerpiece, charging that Laxalt, as attorney general, sought to limit birth control access and, as a senator, would vote for a federal abortion ban.

She has been running ads in Spanish targeting Latino voters for more than four months and has held numerous events with the community.

The Democratic Senator according to Jon Ralston, the longtime journalistic sage on state politics with the Nevada Independent is a stronger candidate, has raised a lot more money and is more disciplined. He says Laxalt, a big Trump supporter who has embraced the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, is really a terrible candidate. Hes no Paul Laxalt.

In what could be the tightest Senate race in the country, it comes down to the better candidate versus the more favorable conditions with the outcome in Latino hands.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hostsPolitics War Roomwith James Carville. Follow him on Twitter@AlHuntDC.

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Republicans, Latino voters and an eye on Nevada - The Hill

President Bidens scaled back Build Back Better agendanot so accurately rebranded as the Inflation Reduction Actis set to arrive on the Senate floor as Republicans may be losing momentum across the country. Senate candidates continue to struggle in states like Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania; and key House races, such as Michigans 3rd District, where John Gibbs defeated Peter Meijer, are shifting toward Democrats. Come November, it may become clear that election denial has consequences. Meanwhile, as Chris Stirewalt argues, the surge of low-propensity voters who turned out in Kansas to vote on abortion hints at trouble for Republicans.

In a weekend session at the end of a bad week, it will be tempting for Republicans to ridicule the tax-and-spend progressive excess in the bill but let Biden have his win and call it a day. Instead, Senate Republicans should use the rules of budget reconciliation, which allow for unlimited amendments, to offer a smart and aggressive amendment strategy. This debate is an important opportunity for Republicans to define not just what they are against, but what they are for when it comes to energy and climate policy.

Senate Democrats are using the playbook they use on every issuegive Republicans a bill theyd never vote for (i.e., one that raises taxes, beefs up the IRS, and expands Obamacare) and demagogue them for not caring about climate change. Republicans should turn the tables. Just as the DCCC recently showed that some Democrats are more interested in protecting Democrats than democracy when they backed election conspiracy theorists in midterm primaries, some Democrats are also more interested in protecting their positions than the planet.

Senate Republicans should start by stripping out the tax increases that would slow the innovation thats required to develop clean energy and ask how spending $80 billion on IRS enforcement and $64 billion on Obamacare subsidies will lower greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of offering a blanket no on the climate provision, Republicans should highlight what theyd consider supporting and then force Democrats to say no to spending offsets rather than tax increases as a means of financing those investments.

Republicans could even offer a planet-saving amendment to deflect the extinction-level climate asteroid some progressive say is coming with big investments in nuclear energy that are paid for by responsibly downsizing the administrative state. In his Nuclear Salvation essay, MITs Kerry Emanuel suggests a shift to nuclear would cost about $100 billion annually, which could be pulled from existing agency budgets. Let Leonardo DiCaprio and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) oppose that.

Republicans also have many constructive ideas on planting trees, permitting reform, and responsible domestic energy production that Democrats should be forced to vote against. Republicans probably cant win any of these amendments, but they can dramatically increase the other sides cost of winning and let Americans know what theyre for in the process.

As our organization recently showed in a June poll in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan, Democrats are out of step with their own base on climate and energy policy. Republicans have an opportunity to take command of an issue thats increasingly important to Americans, especially younger voters. Consider a few of our key findings.

The everything but fossil fuels progressive dogma lives loudly among Democrat political elites, yet 71 percent of Republicans and 63 percentof Democrats prefer an all of the above approach; 66 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Democrats support nuclear energy; and 62 percent of Republicans and 49 percent of Democrats support fracking, while only 32 percent of Democrats oppose fracking. Instead of President Biden asking OPEC to produce more oil, regular folks would prefer to use what we have here.

The poll also found that while Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WVirginia) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York) are working to sell their colleagues on a vote over reforms to the permitting process at an undetermined later date (i.e., probably never), voters want Congress to start with permitting reform now. By a 2-to-1 margin, voters prefer deregulation over new spending or tax increases. Two-thirds of voters want Congress to lift or reform outdated regulations to speed up the deployment of new clean energy technology, while only 31 percent are open to new or additional spending that is paid for by tax increases or borrowing.

Voters also want Congress to reduce and recycle government waste instead of creating more. When we asked voters how they want to fund clean energy research, 49 percent favored spending offsets, 29 percent wanted only private sector spending, 13 percent favored federal borrowing, and only 9 percent supported higher taxes. Voters also dont seem to be impressed by Congress decision to restart the earmark favor factory: 39 percent of voters oppose the return of earmarks, while just 21 percent support their return.

The bills authors no doubt understand that while climate change continues to creep up the list of voter priorities, its still dwarfed by overall concerns about inflation and gas prices. Our poll showed that 51 percent of voters view reducing inflation and gas prices as the most important issue while only 9 percent said the same of climate change. And calling a bill inflation reduction doesnt make it so. A Wharton study found that the bill wont reduce inflation, while the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found it will increase taxes for people earning less than $400,000, thereby violating President Bidens campaign pledge. Democrats claim to be deeply serious about the science yet conveniently ignore math that doesnt advance their ideological goals.

It's true that some polls, such as a recent Pew poll, suggest popular support for corporate tax increases. But a deeper look shows that when voters realize the costs will be passed on to them, they wont be happy. Our poll found that 76 percent of Republicans and Democrats are not willing to pay more than $10 a month to fight climate change.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosis (D-California) Taiwan visit inadvertently boosted the GOPs case by showing the world a belligerent China cant be trusted to care about climate change or its status as the worlds leading greenhouse gas emitter. In fact, China has already said it will no longer engage with the U.S. on climate because of Pelosis visit. Of course, few policymakers except for John Kerry ever thought China was serious.

Republicans should use their floor time to argue that were not going to beat China by becoming like China. Top-down authoritarianism isnt a sound way to reduce emissions. When it comes to forcing Chinas hand, our poll found that voters tend to prefer a Reagan-esque realism approach to more isolationism. A majority of voters (54 percent) do support a more protectionist trade policy toward China, but 62 percent support a NATO of the Pacific and more muscular policy of containment while 69 percent want to beat China with an economic freedom agenda focused on promoting innovation at home and accessing our own critical minerals.

Fortunately, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) has given Senate Republicans a head start on amendment ideas through his energy, climate and conservation task force. The Climate and Freedom Agenda authored by Nick Loris, VP of Public Policy at C3 Solutions, contains enough specifics to keep the Senate floor busy for weeks.

As my former boss, the late Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okloahoma), showed, amendment hardball works. He called these exercises teaching moments. Years of wearing down big-spending senators with creative amendments that exposed agendas and forced hard choices paid off. In 2011, conservatives got an earmark ban that lasted a decade while the Budget Control Act led to the first real year-on-year spending reduction since the end of the Korean War. In Washington, thats like making the river that fills the swamp run backward.

This bill isnt the last word on climate and energy policy. Its one marker in what will be a generational fight and struggle between freedom and authoritarianism and those who favor bottom-up innovation over top-down command and control decision-making. Republicans should use this debate to play offense and offer a teaching moment that contrasts governing styles. Voters, including primary voters, want Republicans to offer climate and energy solutions and prefer those candidates. Science and math are on the side of conservatives and against the deficit deniers. Free economies are twice as clean as less free economies. This is a fight conservatives can win and should run toward, not from.

John Hart is the Executive Director of the Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions Action and the co-founder of C3 Solutions.

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Senate Republicans Need to Define What They're For - The Dispatch