Meijer loss sparks new criticism of Democratic meddling in GOP primaries

Rep. Peter Meijer’s narrow loss in a western Michigan Republican primary is intensifying scrutiny on the Democratic House campaign arm’s efforts to elevate the pro-Trump election conspiracy theorist who captured the GOP nomination on Tuesday.

Meijer became the latest casualty of former President Trump’s pledge to exact revenge on Republicans who voted last year to impeach him for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, falling in the primary to John Gibbs, a former Housing and Urban Development official who had Trump’s endorsement in the race for Michigan’s 3rd District.

But Trump wasn’t the only power player working against Meijer in the nominating contest. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) spent nearly half a million dollars on ads boosting Gibbs, believing that he might prove easier for the Democratic nominee Hillary Scholten to defeat in November.

While that strategy could prove successful — the 3rd District is more competitive now than it was in past elections — it’s now the subject of intense criticism by many Republicans and Democrats, who are warning that top party officials are playing with fire by promoting GOP candidates whom they have long cast as a threat to democracy.

“Politics is cutthroat. I don’t think anyone would argue with that,” said one Democratic strategist who has worked on House races. “But you can’t rule out the possibility that maybe Gibbs actually wins and then there’s one more member of the election deniers caucus. You can’t go around telling people that candidates like that are dangerous and then help them win their primaries.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who also voted to impeach Trump last year and is not seeking reelection, said that Democrats “own” Meijer’s loss, blaming them for compromising their own values by propping up the campaign of a candidate who has echoed Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

“Here’s the thing: don’t keep coming to me asking where are all the good Republicans that defend democracy and then take your donors’ money and spend half-a-million dollars promoting one of the worst election deniers that’s out there,” Kinzinger said on CNN. “The DCCC needs to be ashamed of themselves.”

Even before the Tuesday primary, Meijer himself spoke out against the DCCC’s spending in the race, saying that the House Democratic campaign arm had crossed a moral line for a chance at political gain.

“You would think that the Democrats would look at John Gibbs and see the embodiment of what they say they most fear,” Meijer wrote in an online essay published Monday. “That as patriots they would use every tool at their disposal to defeat him and similar candidates that they’ve said are an existential threat.” 

A spokesperson for the DCCC said that Gibbs’ victory “seals the fate of Republicans hoping to keep this now Democratic-leaning district, waving off questions about the group’s efforts to boost Gibbs.”

“An anti-choice radical who sided with violent insurrectionists and would throw out your vote if he doesn’t like it, Gibbs is no match for Hillary Scholten, who has dedicated her career to bringing people together to get things done. Republicans have no choice but to embrace their unelectable MAGA extremist candidate,” the spokesperson, Matt Corridoni, said.

The DCCC’s meddling in the GOP primary isn’t entirely new, nor is the group the only one to have pursued such a strategy. 

In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) spent millions of dollars this year on ads seeking to nudge voters toward Darren Bailey, a right-wing state senator and Trump ally, in the Republican gubernatorial primary. 

A similar tactic played out in Maryland, where a DGA-aligned super PAC ran ads featuring Trump-endorsed gubernatorial hopeful Dan Cox. Both Bailey and Cox went on to win their primaries.

The strategy has its defenders. In the case of the primary in Michigan’s 3rd District, they argue, the DCCC’s investment was negligible compared to the total spending in the primary. What’s more, they’re quick to note that it was Republican voters — not Democrats — that ultimately chose to nominate Gibbs over Meijer.

“DCCC spending in the Meijer race was a few hundred grand in a multi-million dollar race,” tweeted Zac Petkanas, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. “Meijer would have helped McCarthy become speaker & Jordan become Judiciary/Oversight chair.

“Enough with the finger wagging from professional commentators who’ve never been on a campaign.”

For top Democrats scrambling to hold on to their paper-thin House majority this year, the risks that come with boosting Gibbs in the primary just may be worth the potential reward: flipping a Republican-held seat in an otherwise brutal election year for Democrats.

Once a Republican-leaning seat, the decennial redistricting process has turned Michigan’s 3rd District into a political battleground, giving Democrats a better chance of winning this year. Scholten, a former Justice Department lawyer, previously sought the seat in 2020 but lost to Meijer by more than 6 percentage points.

And there’s reason to believe that, with Gibbs as the Republican nominee, the general election is trending in Democrats’ direction. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, shifted the contest from a toss-up into its “lean Democratic” column immediately after Gibbs clinched the nomination. 

Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist, said that whether the risk of backing Gibbs in the primary was worth it won’t ultimately be known until November. But he added that the DCCC’s efforts to influence the 3rd District primary were fair game, especially with Democrats’ House majority on the line this year.

“The job here is to win the seat. The job here is to deny Kevin McCarthy the Speakership,” Reinish said, referring to the House Republican leader. “And if it runs through that district then it runs through that district. So be it.”

Still, some Democrats lamented Meijer’s loss on Wednesday, praising the first-term congressman as one of the few House Republicans willing to put himself in political peril in order to do what he believed was right.

“What we need in our public officials is courage, a commitment to service over politics, and loyalty to country over party bosses. Peter Meijer lives those values,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said. “He was willing to do the right thing for the American people even though he knew it could end up costing him his seat in Congress.

“Peter’s successor might well serve ten terms in Congress and not build the legacy Peter earned in one.”

Updated at 6:32 p.m.