Indiana will be the next big test of Trump’s influence over the Republican Party. It comes after a bitter 2022 that was supposed to see a red wave, but voters broke toward the Democrats in several areas due to the quality of candidates and, it seems, whether or not those candidates were closely tied to Trump.
It is pretty hard to look at the results and dig into the data from November 2022 and come away with the idea that Trumpism is the key to success. Republican candidates in swing states who had few, if any, ties to Trump outperformed those who did by an incredible amount. The few exceptions to this – including Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker – were just bad candidates.
Indiana isn’t seen as a swing state, though, which makes the upcoming Senate race to replace Sen. Mike Braun, who is stepping down after this term. This leaves the state prepping for what appears to be a bloody and divisive battle in a GOP primary.
Rep. Jim Banks has announced he is running for Braun’s seat, and former Governor Mitch Daniels is expected to announce he will run. Banks is a Trump Republican and Daniels is a Reaganite.
Donald Trump, Jr. began attacking Daniels on Twitter a few days ago, and his father in private conversations has been calling Daniels a “midget” because he is five-foot-seven.
The establishment is trying to recruit weak RINO Mitch Daniels to run for US Senate in Indiana. The same Mitch Daniels who agreed with Joe Biden that millions of MAGA Republicans are supposedly a danger to the country & trying to “subvert democracy.”
He would be Mitt Romney 2.0 pic.twitter.com/mCWNO2LEvG
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 13, 2023
There is a deep dive into the dynamics of the upcoming race in POLITICO, and it describes a bitter fight… between people who are decidedly not the candidates.
I’d love to see Mitch Daniels in the Senate. A decade ago, even better. But I’ve been cringing at the thought of this primary and @adamwren piece is worse than I feared. His circle is doing him no favors. I hope they figure it out, because this ain’t it. https://t.co/cDWOaRXezw
— Liam Donovan (@LPDonovan) January 19, 2023
Trump allies aren’t waiting for those talks to end before they unload. In a series of tweets in recent days, Donald Trump. Jr. accused Daniels of being a “weak RINO,” “Mitt Romney 2.0,” and “Mitch Romney (RINO-IN).” In private conversations, the elder Trump has also made derisive remarks about the 5-foot-7 Daniels’ height, calling him a “midget,” according to two people with knowledge of his remarks.
In response, Mark Lubbers, Daniels’ closest advisor and confidante, has unloaded on what he has called the “Trump crime family” in recent statements.
[…]
Lubbers, who has long opposed Trump’s takeover of the party, said in an interview that the race could be “ground zero of the Republican Civil War.” Banks, he added “has become the proxy for beating everything that’s gone wrong since the grifters took over our party. This is Gettysburg. … Poor Banks has been given the role of George Pickett.”
A person close to Banks, in contrast, noted that “Donald Trump turned Indiana deep red,” adding that “if Mitch were serious about running, his best friend [Lubbers] and political advisor wouldn’t be badmouthing President Trump and his 1.7 million Hoosier voters to the media.”
Neither candidate is attacking the other. In fact, according to POLITICO, they had a cordial call recently. But the problem with Indiana isn’t the candidates. The problem is with two sides of the Republican Party going to war before the primary has even started, attempting to divide the base early. As a result, this isn’t so much an impending Republican Civil War as much as it’s going to be a bunch of proxies waving their you-know-what at each other and driving voters away.
Which brings me back to my original point in this column. The voters in 2022 decided they don’t want to revisit past battles. They are tired of hearing about 2020. They are tired of hearing about Trump’s personal battles. They are tired of hearing about the “Trump Crime Family” and all the same old regurgitated attacks. The voters want to move forward.
So, re-hashing these battles, as the idiot consultants, strategists, and partisans seem to want to do, does nothing but waste time. It doesn’t help either side.
What I hope is that both Banks and Daniels can speak for themselves and focus on the issues of the race and let the voters decide based on the merits rather than how much Trump likes them (or how much they like Trump). Indiana hasn’t always been a deep red state, and you can say it was Trump who turned it red, but nothing is permanent in electoral politics, and voters who are disgusted with the GOP having these stupid battles are more than willing to sit at home or vote Democrats into office.
But this war being started by proxies and consultants and advisers only serves to hurt the candidates, not help them. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – this is a critical point for the GOP to really rein in its dumb fascination with consultants who give bad advice and make millions from it. They are doing the Republicans no favors, and this inside baseball from Indiana further proves it.
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