ICYMI: MSNBC Highlights Scandals of Flawed Republican Senate Recruits in WI, PA, MT, MI, and AZ

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Last night, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show detailed the pattern of scandals, biographical lies, and damaging vulnerabilities that have recently emerged about Republican Senate recruits in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Montana, Michigan, and Arizona. 

You can watch the full MSNBC segment here.

On Eric Hovde in Wisconsin: “He lives in Laguna Beach, California, where indeed his bank is named a co-defendant in a nursing home elder abuse lawsuit. And he is running for Senate in Wisconsin, where 18% of the population is over the age of 65. He’s running there by saying repeatedly that people in nursing homes shouldn’t be allowed to vote.”

• “Turns out, at the same time that he has been questioning the mental capacity of nursing home residents to vote, he is also the head of a bank that is a co-defendant in a California lawsuit that accuses a senior living facility of elder abuse, negligence, and wrongful death. He is a co-defendant in that lawsuit. His bank is a co-defendant because it turns out that Eric Hovde, in addition to running for Senate in Wisconsin, he runs a bank that owns a nursing home that in California has given rise to a fairly gruesome elder abuse and wrongful death lawsuit.”

• “Why did you say California, I thought he was running for Senate in Wisconsin? Ah yes, yes, this is another problem that the local news in Wisconsin has been trying to tell people about this guy from the very beginning…he lives in California.” 

On David McCormick in Pennsylvania: “Here’s the AP headline on the Republicans’ U.S. Senate candidate in Pennsylvania: David McCormick is gearing up for a Senate run in Pennsylvania, but he lives in Connecticut. That seems bad.”

• “He’s going to describe himself as someone who started with nothing, who grew up on a family farm in Pennsylvania.” 

• “In fact, Mr. McCormick is the son of a well-regarded college president who later became chancellor of higher education systems in Pennsylvania and in Minnesota. David McCormick largely grew up at what is now Bloomsburg University in the president’s sprawling hilltop residence, which students call the ‘President’s Mansion.’”

• “In Pennsylvania, Republicans are running a guy who lives in Connecticut who grew up in a literal president’s mansion and says it was a family farm where he was so poor.”

On Tim Sheehy in Montana: “Republicans have decided to run someone…in Montana, who is a person from Minnesota, who grew up in the suburbs of St. Paul. Since he has been running against Jon Tester, though, he has made a big deal of saying that he grew up near farmland. Turns out there was maybe farmland near the multimillion-dollar lake house he grew up in, in suburban St. Paul.”

• “This follows another quite unusual controversy for this Montana Senate candidate in which he either dropped a loaded gun in a parking lot at Glacier National Park, and the gun went off when it hit the ground, and he thereby shot himself in the arm. Or he didn’t really shoot himself in the arm by dropping a gun…but he nevertheless went to the hospital anyway.” 

• “And while he did tell a U.S. Park ranger that he dropped a gun in that parking lot and shot himself that day, he was actually lying about that to the ranger because really he was trying to conceal the secret truth that he had an unreported war wound that he didn’t want anybody to know about.”

On Mike Rogers in Michigan: “Cue the headlines out of Michigan: Michigan Republican candidate caught living in Florida.”

• “This is about Republican Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers. His name is Mike Rogers. This confluence of where he lives and his name led the Michigan Advance to build the perfect headline for this story, which is quote, ‘Where is Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood?’”

• “Mike Rogers again wants to be the senator from Michigan, but he does appear to be registered to vote in Florida at his very nice house in Cape Coral, Florida, where he is registered with the Republican Party of Florida, voter status active. Where is Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood indeed?”

On Kari Lake in Arizona: “Kari Lake is the Republican Party’s best idea of who they should run for the United States Senate seat…she wants individual sheriffs in Arizona to start enforcing the state’s 1864 abortion ban.”

• “This…is the new ad that the Democratic Senate campaign committee just put out on Kari Lake as a Senate candidate in Arizona, and the issue of abortion rights in that state.”

• “I mean clock the context, the specifics that she was offering there in that clip: She wants individual sheriffs in Arizona to start enforcing the state’s 1864 abortion ban.”

• “Sheriffs and sheriff’s deputies, get out there. Get to it. Get out on the streets, find out who’s pregnant. We want the sheriffs enforcing this.”

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