Trump’s Influence Intensifies GOP Senate Primaries Across The Map

Ahead of President Trump’s visit to North Carolina this weekend, four new stories highlight how he’s intensifying and escalating GOP Senate primaries across the map as Republican candidates compete for his approval: 

• In Arizona: GOP candidate Jim Lamon is spending five-figures on a new TV ad…in New Jersey. The Washington Examiner featured Lamon’s campaign advisor openly admitting they “don’t think there are a lot of people from Arizona that summer in New Jersey” and instead are focused on “appealing directly to Trump,” not actual Arizonans.

• In Pennsylvania: an Associated Press report detailed how “Trump looms large” over the GOP primary race and the Pittsburgh City Paper reported how Sean Parnell and Jeff Bartos are attacking each other over past criticisms of Trump.

• And NBC News is reporting that GOP Senate candidates in Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Alabama are eager to appear on Steve Bannon’s podcast for “the chance to demonstrate loyalty to Bannon’s former boss and pitch themselves…to Trump himself.”

Read more about how Trump’s “enduring” influence is intensifying GOP primaries:

Washington Examiner: Arizona Republican spends on ads in New Jersey to reach Trump

• Only one vote matters in the campaign for the Republican Senate nomination in Arizona, which explains wealthy businessman Jim Lamon’s decision to advertise on cable television in New Jersey, where former President Donald Trump is summering.

• “I don’t think there are a lot of people from Arizona that summer in New Jersey,” Jeff Roe, who is advising Lamon’s Senate campaign, said Tuesday, confirming his candidate’s blatant strategy to outflank his primary opponents. 

Pittsburgh City Paper: An extensive list of all the times Sean Parnell criticized Donald Trump

• After former President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, a cavalcade of Pennsylvania Republicans sprang to Trump’s defense, and even went as far to attempt to delegitimize President Joe Biden’s election victory. Among those were former Congressional candidate and now U.S. Senate candidate Sean Parnell.

• But this wasn’t always the case. Before Trump secured the Republican nomination in 2016, Parnell criticized Trump often and in harsh terms.

• Parnell’s opponents have been quick to point out his past criticism of Trump. Jeff Bartos, a businessman who’s also running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, ran digital ads on Google after Parnell’s announcement saying that Parnell “sided with liberals” and linked to Parnell’s 2016 tweet when he called for Trump to release his tax returns.

• “Digging up old out-of-context tweets reeks of desperation. But what else would you expect from someone like Jeff Bartos who has personally donated to multiple Democrats who supported impeaching President Trump and removing him from office?” said Prior in a statement to Pittsburgh City Paper.

• Conor McGuinness, spokesman for the Bartos campaign, pushed back against Parnell, reiterated calls about Parnell’s former Trump criticism, and brought up other instances where Parnell “sided with liberals,” including Parnell’s past support of mail-in voting. He said “frauds like Sean Parnell are what’s wrong with politics.”

• “Glad to see Sean Parnell is admitting his support for Act 77, the disastrous legislation that cost President Trump the state of Pennsylvania and the Presidency, and agreeing that he sided with liberals in demanding Donald Trump release his tax returns,” said McGuinness. “Jeff Bartos has raised and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect pro-Trump Republicans. We’ll gladly stack that up against Sean Parnell’s effort to sabotage President Trump’s re-election any day of the week.”

Associated Press: Trump looms large in Pennsylvania’s GOP primaries in 2022

• With Pennsylvania’s wide-open races for governor and U.S. Senate taking shape, Republican candidates with strong ties to Donald Trump are running and considered strong contenders for the party’s nominations — a powerful sign of the former president’s enduring popularity within the GOP.

• It was no mistake, perhaps, that the first attack Parnell faced from GOP rival Jeff Bartos was to try to fray his ties to Trump.

• The Bartos campaign quickly spooled out a Parnell missive on Twitter from 2016, when he criticized Trump’s refusal to release his taxes. Asked about it, Parnell said he thought Trump could “inoculate” himself from that line of attack if he had.

• “You can be the meanest, most hardcore, go-get-’em Make America Great Again, radical Republican, and you can win a primary,” said Dave Ball, Washington County’s GOP chair. “But you can’t win a general election because you can’t pull in the center. … I don’t care how you cut it. You need votes.”

NBC News: Bannon has his MAGA megaphone back. GOP candidates know it.

• Steve Bannon has a new MAGA megaphone, and Republicans eager to shine in a party still tethered to former President Donald Trump know it.

• Bannon, the former Breitbart News executive and one of the architects of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, has increasingly leveraged his “War Room: Pandemic” podcast into a kind of proxy primary. Ambitious Republicans are flocking there for the chance to demonstrate loyalty to Bannon’s former boss and pitch themselves to Trump’s voters — and, more indirectly, to Trump himself.

• Eric Greitens, the former Missouri governor who resigned over a sexual misconduct allegation and is now running for Senate, is a frequent guest. And Bannon has taken a particular interest in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two states where next year’s primaries for governor and Senate are shaping up as big Trump loyalty tests.

• Miller said the former president — often referred to as an “audience of one” for those who wish to please him on TV and radio — is familiar with “War Room.”

• “We present him with clips,” Miller said of Trump. “I frequently update him on who’s on the show and who’s doing what.” The former president, he added, “definitely has an appreciation for the work that Bannon and the show are doing.”

• Sean Parnell, a Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, told local reporters at his campaign launch that he had no interest in re-litigating the 2020 election. On Bannon’s show less than two weeks later, Parnell said he would welcome an audit of election results in his state — a contradiction first noted by Pittsburgh’s NPR affiliate, WESA. Jeff Bartos, another Senate hopeful in Pennsylvania, has used “War Room” to call Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim, “Hamas’ spokesperson in the United States.”

• As multiple candidates in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary seek to tie themselves closely to the former president, Bannon has welcomed former state party leader Jane Timken and former state treasurer Josh Mandel. He’s also had on J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author and venture capitalist who is exploring a bid.

• Greitens, the former Missouri governor and current Senate candidate, has used his appearances to press his own MAGA credentials, which could help him emerge from a crowded Senate primary in Missouri. 

###