Competitive Senate and House primaries this year are routinely pitting the GOP’s establishment wing against its grassroots conservative base. This is nothing new, and it’s been part of a larger ideological civil war within the party that has been going on since at least 2010. However, there is at least one Senate race in 2018 where the party has been almost universally unified from the get-go.
In Missouri, Attorney General Josh Hawley has seemingly done the impossible by unifying the majority of the party around his campaign to defeat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.
He’s earned himself praise from establishment oriented groups like Senate Leadership Fund, support from conservative groups like the Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Fund, and most importantly, a rare primary endorsement from President Trump himself.
Since that time, Hawley has consistently led McCaskill in general election polling. But over the last several months a scandal has erupted in Missouri that threatens to derail Hawley’s campaign.
Earlier this year, the Republican Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri was forced to admit to cheating on his wife in a 2015 affair. But this wasn’t just your typical run of the mill story about a politician being unfaithful to his wife and asking for forgiveness. Greitens allegedly attempted to blackmail the women he admitted to having an affair with, using a nude photograph he secretly took of her while she was tied up and blindfolded. Additionally, the woman testified under oath multiple times that Greitens coerced her into oral sex as she lay crying on his basement floor and that he had struck her in the face in anger.
[Update: Embattled Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens to resign]
Since the charges became public, Greitens and his allies have viciously targeted conservatives calling for him to step aside. Most egregiously, he even tried comparing his situation to some of the laughable and patently false allegations made against Trump over the last few years.
But unlike Trump, Greitens has actually been indicted by a court of law for his alleged misdeeds. In addition, a House Special Committee, consisting of mostly Republicans, voted to investigate the allegations, believing that enough evidence existed to consider impeachment.
Greitens is not only charged with invasion of privacy. He has also been credibly accused of stealing a donor list from a charity and using it to raise money for his campaign. To make matters worse, Greitens has continually lied to the press and the voters of Missouri throughout this entire ordeal.
His approval rating in Missouri has of course cratered, and that is causing collateral damage for other Republicans in the state, including Hawley.
While McCaskill has long been considered a a vulnerable candidate in 2018, Democrats have figured out that their one path to saving her lies in highlighting Greitens’ scandals and using them to (unfairly) tar and feather Hawley.
To that end, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s super PAC recently announced a million dollar statewide ad buy going after Hawley over Greitens’ alleged misdeeds.
Defeating McCaskill is essential for Republicans to ensure that we hold onto power in the Senate and can continue passing the Trump agenda.
But sadly, the scandals surrounding Greitens have now become a lifeline for McCaskill and the Democrats chances of re-taking the U.S. Senate, which would result in the death of the Trump agenda in Congress.
The Missouri House is currently considering impeachment proceedings and while the governor certainly deserves his day in court over the charges against him, it doesn’t mean everyone else should have to suffer, just so he can try to selfishly cling onto power.
If Greitens truly cares about the Trump agenda, the Republican Party and the people he serves in Missouri, he won’t wait for a drawn-out impeachment process. Rather, he will resign immediately so that Republicans can move on from the dark cloud caused by his administration and get on with the hard work of fighting to make America great again.
Andy Surabian is a Republican strategist and former special assistant to President Trump and deputy White House strategist. He also served as war room director on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
