Senate Republicans are breathing a sigh of relief as the 2018 primary season has come and gone without any of their preferred candidates losing primaries to opponents they feared could have jeopardized their majority in the fall.
With the victory of Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., on Tuesday, Republicans endured what was viewed late last year as a potentially arduous primary season after Judge Roy Moore’s victory over former Sen. Luther Strange in Alabama and the rise of candidates promoted by Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and Breitbart executive. In particular, Republicans feared writing off races in states like West Virginia, Arizona, and Nevada, but were able to come out unscathed.
“It says we’re recruiting quality candidates who know how to run good races,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., the co-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
In recent cycles, Republicans decided to alter their previous hands-off approach to primaries and now are willing to spend millions to ensure their preferred candidates emerge to increase their chances in November.
Top Republicans credit an improved working relationship between the White House and Senate Republicans, along with Bannon’s banishment from President Trump’s inner circle.
“A lot of the success has to be credited to a good partnership,” said Josh Holmes, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “At no point during the cycle were Senate Republicans and the White House on two different pages in a competitive primary.”
Trump’s impact on the 2018 scene has been a boon to McConnell’s push to keep the majority ever since the Moore debacle. In March, Trump convinced Danny Tarkanian, a perennial candidate, to drop his primary bid against Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., allowing Heller to prep for Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., in November instead of a primary fight.
“He changed the dynamics of my primary,” Heller said in an interview. “Tarkanian was 30 points down when he got out, and the White House knew it. They said, ‘Hey Danny, we really don’t need to spend $3-5 million on this primary when the writing is on the wall.'”
In West Virginia, Republicans connected to the Senate Leadership Fund, a group allied with McConnell, spent $1.4 million to sink Don Blankenship’s campaign in the final weeks as Democrats spent heavily against Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va. Both campaigns proved effective as Patrick Morrisey, the state’s attorney general, prevailed. Trump urged West Virginia Republicans to vote against Blankenship, specifically citing Moore’s loss in Alabama.
Finally, Republicans scored a big win with McSally, who won nearly 53 percent over Kelli Ward, who Bannon boosted and Trump briefly hailed for taking on Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., last year. Ward was viewed in many circles as a non-starter in a general election, particularly against Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who Republicans view as a formidable opponent.
While primary season is over, McConnell and his allies have one other potential landmine to avoid: Chris McDaniel. The Mississippi state senator who nearly toppled former Sen. Thad Cochran in 2014 is squaring off in a nonpartisan “jungle primary” against Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, a former Democratic congressman. The top two vote-winners will face each other three weeks later in a runoff.
While McDaniel gave the GOP establishment heartburn in 2014, he is not expected to emerge from the primary. Trump endorsed Hyde-Smith last week, leaving McDaniel and his allies to pick up the pieces. Remember Mississippi, a PAC supporting McDaniel, claimed that the endorsement was “Mitch McConnell’s endorsement, not President Trump’s,” a reaction Hyde-Smith’s campaign mocked.
“He is just like many Bannon candidates: an under-qualified candidate in search of a justification for his candidacy,” Holmes said. “Guys like McDaniel are running campaigns four years after their political environment left … He is running a 2010 campaign in 2018.”
Hyde-Smith is viewed as the front-runner in the race.
