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Not three weeks after his op-ed published, Mr. Tillis reversed course and voted for the national emergency. In June, Mr. Walker announced he would not pursue a primary.

Tillis was a wake-up call for everyone, said Tyler Sandberg, a Republican strategist. If you disagreed with something the president did, it was like, Be careful; you saw what happened to Tillis.

The result is that the National Republican Congressional Committee is no longer consumed by the once inevitable task of neutralizing serious challenges to its members from the right. According to a G.O.P. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions, apart from Mr. Fitzpatricks race, only a few primaries this cycle have been deemed cause for concern.

The presidents monopoly on Republican voters is more powerful than any ideological or stylistic divide, said Nathan Gonzales, editor of Inside Elections and an elections analyst for CQ Roll Call. There might be interest in challenging an incumbent from the right or as an outsider, but as long as that member stays close to Trump, there just isnt enough oxygen to get the job done.

But then theres Representative Kay Granger, the 12-term incumbent of Texass 12th District. As ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, shes one of the lower chambers most powerful Republicans. Yet she finds herself confronting her most and arguably only competitive primary in her two-plus decades in Congress, a challenge driven by charges of a lackluster allegiance to Mr. Trump.

On Sept. 24, a technology company executive named Chris Putnam, who promoted himself as an outsider just like President Trump, declared his candidacy. As The Texas Tribune reported, in the six days before the close of the quarter on Sept. 30, Mr. Putnam boasted a haul of $456,000, trouncing Ms. Grangers quarter-long effort of $284,000.

Ms. Granger is certainly no Brian Fitzpatrick unlike her House colleague, she votes with Mr. Trump roughly 97 percent of the time. But flashes of dissent, including her call for Mr. Trump to remove himself from consideration as commander in chief after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in 2016, have been enough to buoy her opponent. In an interview, Mr. Putnam accused Ms. Granger of being a full-on Never Trumper during the last three years. We have to get people who are running for the right reasons, he said.

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A Primary From the Right? Not in Trumps G.O.P. - The New York Times