A year out, the Republican Party is bracing for a major schism between traditional Republican moderates and the firebrand conservative movement, which some also see as a populist uprising being led by President Donald Trump.
In recent weeks, the media has turned its attention to Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, formerly a senior counselor to the president and now self-appointed champion of the anti-establishment movement. Bannon, who first joined the Trump campaign in August 2016, has declared war on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican establishment.
“Nobody can run and hide on this one,” Bannon said Saturday at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. “These folks are coming for you. The days of taking a few nice conservative votes and hiding are over.”
While some have questioned Bannon’s relationship with the president following his removal from the White House, others contend Bannon can assist the president and his agenda to a greater degree from the outside.
“In many ways, he’ll have just as much or, at least over time, more influence on the outside than on the inside,” Kurt Bardella, a former Breitbart spokesman, told The Guardian shortly after Bannon’s departure from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
The impending “civil war” for the future of the Grand Ole’ Party is already heating up in three states. While the ongoing infighting in Arizona and Nevada have been well documented, a major battle for the GOP Senate primary in Michigan is slowly bubbling to the surface.
Michigan, a state that Trump carried in 2016 (The first time a Republican won it since 1988), the media has been transfixed on the possibility of a Robert Ritchie (also known as Kid Rock) run for Senate. While it is not something to dismiss, it still seems much more unlikely than likely. Excluding Ritchie, Republican Rep. Fred Upton has long been considered the front-runner for the Republican Senate primary. The issue—Upton called on Trump to drop out of the presidential race following the October video.
Upton, a powerful force in Washington as the outgoing chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee, is now having second thoughts on a Senate bid, concerned that Bannon, or even worse—the president, may come out hard against him. While Upton waffles, one of two declared GOP primary candidates is on the record stating that he supports Trump “2000 percent.” John James, a 37-year-old combat veteran and businessman from Detroit, is positioning himself as the conservative outsider in the race, angling himself as the candidate most supportive of the president’s agenda.
Upton has reason to worry, as the president and Bannon have already lashed out against anti-Trump candidates out west. On Tuesday, Bannon endorsed Dr. Kelli Ward in Arizona, as Trump and his supporters look to oust sitting Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, who has waged a very public war against the president.
“These people hold you in total contempt,” Bannon told a crowd for Dr. Ward Tuesday. “When they attack a Donald Trump and a Dr. Kelli Ward, it’s not Donald Trump and Kelli Ward that they’re trying to shut up. It’s you they’re trying to shut up.”
Flake, seen as a moderate Republican, has not held back on criticizing the president, publicly supporting retiring Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker’s assertion that the president is potentially leading us into “World War III.”
In Nevada, sitting Republican Sen. Dean Heller is facing an opponent of his own, longtime candidate for office Danny Tarkanian, the son of legendary University of Nevada – Las Vegas (UNLV), Jerry Tarkanian.
This past summer, Heller voted in favor of the GOP Senate’s failed “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), after opposing the GOP Senate’s initial health care repeal and replacement plan. His perceived shiftiness on health care irked conservatives to his right and Democrats in a state that voted for Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Tarkanian, a known quantity in Nevada politics, has made his campaign all about supporting the president and his agenda. Tarkanian blames Heller and other establishment Republicans for Trump’s narrow loss in the Silver State. While Heller is considered extremely vulnerable, he does have 4.2 million in cash on hand to repel Heller. The Las Vegas shooting incident, in which 58 innocent lives were lost and 500-plus were injured, has driven attention away from the race, and it is unknown how the tragic event has changed the landscape of Nevada politics.
Moving forward, political observers will be closely watching the moves of Steve Bannon, as he wages war against the establishment.
AAN Staff
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