SWING AND A MISS: MCCONNELL, RICK SCOTT RECRUITMENT FAILURE SAGA CONTINUES. A wave of news coverage this week spotlighted how Senate Republicans “are struggling to recruit the best” candidates and have “suffered a string of disappointments” – leaving them with “lesser-known GOP candidates.”
→ DSCC Statement on Senate Republicans’ humiliating recruitment failures:
“Senate Republicans are suffering a series of humiliating recruitment failures because their potential candidates know they cannot defeat strong Senate Democrats. While Senate Democrats are fighting for working families, Republicans are prioritizing the interests of the ultra-wealthy and big corporations that are raising prices on consumers, and potential GOP candidates know this is a contrast that will lead their campaigns to defeat in 2022.”
GOP DISARRAY: TRUMP “RATTLES” MCCONNELL, “ENDANGERS GOP SENATE PROSPECTS.” Trump has set “off yet another GOP civil war” – escalating a feud with McConnell that “threatens to stoke bruising primary fights ahead of the midterms” and “create new headaches for Republicans” who “acknowledge the trouble that party divisions might pose for Republican Senate candidates.”
‘LEGITIMATE POLITICAL DISCOURSE’ IS LEGITIMATE LIABILITY FOR GOP SENATE CANDIDATES. The RNC’s resolution declaring the January 6th insurrection “legitimate political discourse” is the latest example of how the GOP and Republican Senate candidates are “still focused on the last election” and pleasing Trump – not the issues voters care about.
→ DSCC Statement on GOP declaring Jan. 6th “legitimate political discourse”:
“This is why Republican Senate candidates will lose in 2022: they and their party are totally focused on sucking up to Trump and amplifying his attacks on our democracy, not the issues that matter most to the voters that will decide the general election in their states.”
BOLD STRATEGY, COTTON: RON JOHNSON OPPOSES BRINGING JOBS TO WISCONSIN. Self-serving Senator Johnson is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons after he said he would not fight to bring more than 1,000 new jobs to his home state because, “It’s not like we don’t have enough jobs here in Wisconsin.”
→ DSCC Statement on Johnson opposing Wisconsin jobs: “From refusing to support the creation of more than a thousand good paying jobs in Wisconsin to incentivizing companies to outsource American jobs to countries like China, Johnson keeps showing Wisconsinites he’s only looking out for one person: himself — and that’s exactly why they’ll fire him in 2022.”
→ AND JOHNSON “DOUBLES DOWN” – WKOW: Sen. Johnson doubles down on not pushing for Oshkosh jobs
FROM SENATOR BALDWIN – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tammy Baldwin charges Ron Johnson ‘doesn’t support creating jobs in his own hometown’. “‘I’m very disappointed that Senator Johnson doesn’t support creating jobs in his own hometown instead of South Carolina. And I want the trucks built in Oshkosh with Wisconsin workers,’ Baldwin said during a media briefing arranged by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.”
GEORGIA ON MY MIND – AND ON TV: WARNOCK LAUNCHES FIRST TV AD OF CYCLE. Senator Warnock launched his first TV ad of the cycle this week, telling voters “I see you, I hear you, I am you.” The ad acknowledges the struggles everyday Georgians are currently facing and reassures voters that Warnock is working to tackle their most pressing priorities.
Watch “For Georgia” HERE:
MEANWHILE, THE REAL HERSCHEL WALKER COMES INTO FOCUS: NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT SHADY BUSINESS DEALINGS. New reporting today revealing that Walker failed to repay over $600k in loans is just the latest in a string of scandals that expose the real Herschel Walker: a fraud with a record of shadowy, dishonest business practices.
🚨 NEW REPORTING FROM AP: POLICE RECORDS COMPLICATE HERSCHEL WALKER’S RECOVERY STORY
AND WALKER’S GOP OPPONENTS POUNCE AGAIN AS INFIGHTING ESCALATES…
→ Gary Black: “Can you imagine the ads Democrats will run about this if they get the chance?
A vote for @HerschelWalker in May is a vote to re-elect @ReverendWarnock in November.”
→ Latham Sadler: “Herschel cannot win this seat.”
BLESSED BY CHINA – MCCORMICK FACES FRESH SCRUTINY OVER CHINA TIES. David McCormick continues to come under fire for his ties to China after new reporting from the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that he once said “when China succeeds, the United States succeeds.” McCormick then told NBC News in an interview “I’ve been blessed” when pressed about his business dealings with China.
→ Philadelphia Inquirer: David McCormick’s longtime praise for China and trade could bite his Pa. Senate run
AND THE ATTACKS WON’T STOP ANYTIME SOON… NBC NEWS: BACK-AND-FORTH OVER CHINA DOMINATES PENNSYLVANIA’S AIRWAVES.
→ READ more on Pennsylvania’s chaotic GOP primary from PADems here and here.
B-LIST BRAWL: NEW HAMPSHIRE GOP PRIMARY WILL BE “FIGHT FOR DONALD TRUMP’S ENDORSEMENT.” Reporting earlier this week from the New Hampshire Union Leader highlighted how the crowded GOP primary is following a trend playing out across the Senate battlegrounds: Republicans attacking each other in a desperate pursuit of Trump’s endorsement.
ACTION IN ARIZONA: GOP INTRAPARTY FIGHT ESCALATES AS MCGUIRE WHACKS BRNO. Attacks are flying in the wide open Arizona GOP Senate primary after Mick McGuire publicly called out Mark Brnovich to “release the records now.”
ICYMI: “GOP CANDIDATES ADD A REPULSIVE NEW TWIST TO TRUMP’S BIG LIE.” From the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent: “It’s hardly surprising to hear that Republican Senate candidates are campaigning on the ‘big lie’ […] But at least four of these candidates have added an even more repulsive twist: In inventing widespread fraud in 2020, they go out of their way to emphasize that it took place primarily in urban centers.”
JUST THIS WEEK, THANKS TO SENATE DEMOCRATS:
→ Dem Senators Propose Gas Tax Holiday To Lower Costs. While Senate Republicans look out for oil and gas giants that are making record-breaking profits and raising prices on hard-working Americans, Senate Democrats are taking action to lower costs at the gas pump, releasing a new “gas tax suspension to blunt rising prices.”
IN THE STATES:
AZ – Arizona Republic (Opinion): Arizona AG Mark Brnovich’s border ‘invasion’ opinion is sloppy and misleading. “Brnovich doesn’t really have much of a U.S. Senate campaign operation. He’s not raising much money or attracting significant grassroots support. His activities as AG, and the attention he can attract through them, are his senatorial campaign. Brnovich is cheating, and misserving, the people of Arizona in his day job.”
NC – WTVD: Cheri Beasley hoping to make history again, this time as U.S. Senator. “‘So many people care deeply about costs and lowering those costs,” Beasley explained on her motivation for running. ‘So many families are challenged right now, and as I’m speaking to people across the state, they want a senator who is going to fight to make sure they have access to health care, and strengthen the economy here in this state, and be responsive to their needs.’”
OH – Ohio Capital Journal: Republican candidates keep lying about 2020 Election even as proof of legitimacy keeps stacking up. “Clearly, the GOP frontrunners in the race for Ohio’s open U.S. Senate seat have decided it’s more important to be endorsed by a sore loser who nearly destroyed democracy than acknowledge the truth of the 2020 election. Lean into the grotesque spectacle of Ohio Republicans emphatically asserting what they know is untrue about a democratic election decided strictly by the book.”
TWEET OF THE WEEK:
Amanda Sherman
Pat Burgwinkle
Jazmin Vargas
Eli Cousin
Claire Berry
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