A serious threat could hurt the Republican Party’s chances of gaining more Senate seats this November. It’s called bad candidates.
The Republican Party is in a favorable position. It’s a midterm election, and Democratic President Joe Biden has a horrible (39.5%) approval rating, according to FiveThirtyEight. Also, the Senate is split 50-50.
In theory, Republicans should have no problem winning back the Senate, netting three or four seats. However, that probably won’t happen.
The party may end up nominating several bad candidates, some of whom may cost it winnable seats.
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens is a prime example of this phenomenon. Greitens is a bad candidate in a state Republicans should have no problem winning.
The Republican primary front-runner recently put out a campaign ad encouraging his supporters to get their RINO hunting permits. RINO is a pejorative term that stands for “Republican in Name Only.” Given the recent mass shootings in this country, an ad that features firearms and talks about hunting people because of their political beliefs is an awful look.
That’s not his only major problem. Greitens was governor of Missouri for about a year and a half. He resigned in his first term in the wake of both campaign finance violations and alleged sexual misconduct.
That’s a stellar candidate right there, Republicans. And Greitens is one of many problem candidates for Republicans across the country.
Up in New England, New Hampshire Republican Don Bolduc is another. New Hampshire has a weak selection of Republican Senate candidates because Kelly Ayotte and Chris Sununu aren’t running. However, Bolduc stands out among the bunch for a couple of reasons. He called the state’s popular incumbent Republican Gov. Chris Sununu a Communist Chinese sympathizer and has claimed that the 2020 presidential election was rigged (spoiler alert: It wasn’t).
Meanwhile, incumbent Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, is a strong candidate for her party. She was the state’s Senate majority leader, then governor, and beat an incumbent Republican in the 2016 Senate race. In a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2000, Bolduc’s brand of politics probably won’t resonate with voters.
And then there’s Herschel Walker, the standout college football and NFL running back, who is the Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia. He’s running against incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is much too liberal to represent Georgia.
Last year, there were some problems with Walker. He lived in Texas when he announced his bid and supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Allegations exist that he threatened to kill his ex-wife. And now it turns out he has two more sons than previously thought.
Speaking of celebrities, Mehmet Oz, better known as Dr. Oz, is the Republican nominee in Pennsylvania. It’s an open seat in a purple state, and he’s running against the Democratic incumbent lieutenant governor: John Fetterman.
Not only does Dr. Oz lack political experience, but he didn’t sound like a conservative on his television show in the 2010s. He was pro-choice as of 2019, the same year he supported a nationwide ban on assault rifles. He has praised the Swiss and German universal healthcare systems — and he was for Obamacare before he was against it. It won’t be hard to paint him as a political opportunist.
And the Trump-endorsed Republican running for U.S. Senate in Arizona, Blake Masters, brings his share of baggage to the race. Critics are trying to paint him as antisemitic. In 2006, he wrote that the United States hadn’t been involved in a just war in over 140 years. That includes World War II, which the country joined after being bombed by Japan, and on the Western front, the U.S. and its allies helped end the Holocaust by defeating Nazi Germany.
Also, in 2010, he shared an article calling Israel the North Korea of the Middle East.
In a competitive state such as Arizona, where the nominee will run against Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly, Republicans need to be careful about who they nominate.
Biden and the Democratic Party are in a terrible spot with high gas prices and rampant inflation. That said, the biggest threat to Republican success this November is most likely Republicans.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.
