The Republican Main Street Partnership, a gaggle that helps center-leaning House Republicans, plans to direct half one million {dollars} right into a bid to defeat Representative Bob Good, a hard-right lawmaker from Virginia, making an uncommon push to oust a sitting Republican member of Congress.
The transfer is notable not simply because the group, via its marketing campaign giving arm, is inserting itself into the form of intramural battle in opposition to an incumbent that it sometimes avoids. It can also be placing as a result of the candidate it’s backing — John J. McGuire, a former member of the Navy SEALs and an election denier who has pledged fealty to former President Donald J. Trump and promised to deliver a “biblical worldview” to Congress — bears so little resemblance to the form of reasonable Republican the Main Street Partnership was based to assist.
The nonprofit, which operates out of a townhouse blocks from the Capitol, has for years raised and spent cash to assist susceptible Republicans representing politically aggressive districts, together with centrist G.O.P. lawmakers with extra reasonable positions on social points. Its Capitol Hill headquarters function one thing of a counterweight to the Conservative Partnership Institute, which operates close by because the nerve heart of the correct.
But because the Republican Party has veered towards the acute proper, purging itself of what was as soon as a large and influential bloc of centrists, the Main Street Partnership has additionally shed the “moderate” label and altered the character of its mission. The group has just lately expanded its membership to incorporate way more conservatives, and has begun focusing much less on centrism and bipartisanship and extra on ridding Congress of G.O.P. rebels bent on disrupting legislative business and stoking social gathering divides.
Its choice to wade into the G.O.P. major in a solidly Republican district in Virginia exhibits how the group intends to go on offense in opposition to the lawmakers who’ve performed massive roles in paralyzing the House and making it troublesome for the Republican majority to manipulate — even when which means elevating a hard-right candidate it might by no means have supported prior to now.
“We are now a group of 90 members who just want to get things done,” stated Sarah Chamberlain, the president of the Main Street Partnership. She stated the group recognized Mr. Good as its first goal of this election yr due to his distinctive set of vulnerabilities.
The most evident of these is that Mr. Good alienated Mr. Trump by making the politically fateful error of endorsing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida within the early days of the Republican presidential major.
“Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him,” Chris LaCivita, Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign supervisor, instructed Cardinal News in January. The feud permits the Main Street Partnership to focus on Mr. Good with out concern of beginning a proxy warfare with the presumed Republican presidential nominee.
“We cannot have people like that in Congress; he doesn’t want to work together to get things done,” Ms. Chamberlain stated of Mr. Good and his hard-right brethren within the House. “All they want to do is obstruct everything, even their own stuff.”
The transfer comes as Speaker Mike Johnson has been actively discouraging Republicans from focusing on each other within the upcoming elections and attempting — largely with out success — to get his rank and file to behave as a extra united group.
The Republican Main Street Partnership has tried to oust a sitting congressman simply as soon as earlier than, in 2020, when it labored via its marketing campaign arm to defeat former Representative Steve King of Iowa, who made himself a celebration pariah with a sequence of racist feedback.
This yr, the group’s marketing campaign giving arm, Defending Main Street, can also be spending $2.5 million in largely open Republican primaries, within the hopes of bolstering candidates who its leaders consider would work to realize conservative coverage outcomes.
The group’s leaders hope the work will help save the Republican Party from future meltdowns of the type it has suffered within the House throughout this Congress, together with two lengthy and messy races for speaker and Republicans routinely siding with Democrats to dam their social gathering’s personal laws from attending to the ground for votes.
But the choice to spend closely in opposition to an incumbent additionally underscores simply how divided congressional Republicans have change into because the social gathering has moved to the correct.
Mr. Good, who in December was elected chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, was one of many eight Republicans who voted to take away Kevin McCarthy as speaker final fall. He has labored to freeze the House ground by blocking procedural votes as a protest in opposition to his personal social gathering’s management. He has helped to derail Republican-written spending payments and stated that “most Americans won’t even miss” the federal government if there was a shutdown.
His challenger Mr. McGuire, a state senator in Virginia, additionally hails from the far proper. He attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, hosted a screening of the documentary “2000 Mules” that promoted a debunked 2020 election fraud conspiracy idea and has attacked Mr. Good for having “abandoned” Mr. Trump.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right-wing Republican from Georgia, is a backer.
In explaining her group’s choice to assist Mr. McGuire, Ms. Chamberlain made it clear that she is now extra involved with jettisoning rabble-rousers from Congress than with elevating centrist Republicans, as soon as the group’s essential mission.
“Supporting Trump and where he falls on the conservative spectrum plays no factor in our decision-making,” Ms. Chamberlain stated. “John McGuire is committed to working to deliver conservative solutions, not burning the House down.”
Mr. McGuire has stated there isn’t a time for “toxic infighting that cripples our party and country” and criticized Mr. Good’s vote to oust Mr. McCarthy.
Mr. Good’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark.
It just isn’t but clear whether or not the Main Street Partnership will goal different Republican incumbents. Ms. Chamberlain stated she had thought-about taking purpose at Representative Lauren Boebert, the right-wing Republican who’s working in a crowded major to succeed Representative Ken Buck, who plans to go away Congress subsequent week.
For now, she stated she had determined that it might be too costly to attempt to clear the sector in a race the place Ms. Boebert, who presently represents a extra aggressive district in western Colorado, has landed Mr. Trump’s endorsement and nonetheless has a marketing campaign money benefit over the opposite candidates.
But Ms. Chamberlain stated she hoped her group may present a secure haven for Republicans who wish to deal with governing at a time when the social gathering is fractured and plenty of lawmakers are bored with congressional dysfunction.
On Tuesday, Mr. Buck, a staunch conservative who was additionally one of many eight Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy, introduced his choice to chop brief his last time period in Congress, telling reporters that “this place keeps going downhill and I don’t need to spend more time here.”
Others are sticking round with the hopes of a extra practical future. New members of the Main Street Partnership embrace Representatives Max Miller of Ohio, a former official within the Trump administration; Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota; Buddy Carter of Georgia; and Andy Barr of Kentucky.
The group can also be conducting a purge of its personal. It just lately kicked out Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy final yr and has taken a hard-right flip towards Trumpism as she seems to protect her personal political future.
Source: www.nytimes.com