The GOP criticized Trump’s bid to oust McConnell

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Voters “care more about what you do as a senator, what you announce, what you voted against, how you fight for it,” Sen said. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Who won in 2020 with Trump’s endorsement and believes McConnell is doing a “good job”.

The former president, who remains critical of McConnell for refusing to help him overturn the 2020 election results, has intensified his calls for ousting the Kentucky Republican from leadership in recent weeks. Just this week, Trump released several official statements denouncing McConnell, saying the GOP leader “saved the Democrats” by striking a deal to allow them to raise the debt ceiling, which resulted in of some unrest within the Senate GOP.

“How this person will remain as Leader is beyond comprehension — it comes not only from me, but from almost everyone in the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on Thursday. “He’s a disaster and should be replaced as ‘Leader’ ASAP!”

The series of attacks on McConnell was fueled by Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, who also chased the GOP leader into the air this fall. Carlson, in a segment last week, announced that his show would begin regularly highlighting McConnell’s problems, which he described as “an instrument of the left.”

However, anti-McConnell sentiment has not yet been the dominant theme in the campaign path before the 2022. Republican campaign personnel in many states said their candidates received only one or two questions in the events about their support for McConnell – far from a rallying cry from the conservative base.

“I’m sure there are some consultants who tell them you have to be counter-establishment,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (RS.D.) said. “I don’t think most people will vote for a candidate based on who they vote for leader.”

So far, two prominent GOP Senate candidates have called for McConnell’s ouster – Kelly Tshibaka, an Alaska Republican who challenges the incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and Eric Greitens, the former Missouri governor running for a seat vacated by retired Sen. .Roy Blunt.

“You’ll find a lot of leaders in the Senate, like me, who don’t support Mitch McConnell for leadership because he’s anything but a leader,” Tshibaka said, challenging one of Trump’s top targets in the chamber.

Tshibaka, who made the declaration Monday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, is so far the only candidate endorsed by Trump to publicly reject McConnell. Greitens, who in September became the first Senate candidate in 2022 to pledge to oppose McConnell as leader, also did so on Bannon’s popular conservative show. So far Trump has not endorsed the Missouri race.

In an interview, Murkowski said he supported McConnell’s leadership and despised Tshibaka’s tactics: “Perhaps there is a national playbook for campaigns; I don’t think the Alaskans are playing in a national playbook. ”

Aside from Tshibaka, Senate candidates endorsed by Trump elsewhere have refused to take bait on the McConnell issue, suggesting that Trump’s year -long crusade against the Senate Republican leader failed to emerge as a effective litmus test in Senate primaries.

That’s despite Trump’s status as the de facto leader of the Republican Party and his widespread popularity among GOP voters – 83 percent of them have a favorable opinion of him. McConnell’s favor rating, on the other hand, is 41 percent, according to a new poll from POLITICO and Morning Consult.

In his career in the North Carolina Senate, Rep. Trump-backed Ted Budd has repeatedly refused to answer whether he supports McConnell. In a statement to POLITICO this week, his campaign adviser Jonathan Felts said Budd was focused on winning.

“The only thing we’re thinking about in future leadership elections is we want to do our part to make sure the Republican Leader is the majority leader, not the minority leader, so that we can stop Joe Biden’s liberal agenda,” he said. by Felts.

Meanwhile, the campaign of Budd’s Republican opponent, former Gov. Pat McCrory, openly praises McConnell’s leadership.

“Gov. McCrory had a great discussion with Sen. McConnell before deciding to run for the Senate, and he will fully support him as leader, ”said Jordan Shaw, a McCrory campaign adviser.

McConnell declined to comment for this story. When asked Thursday about Trump’s push to replace him as leader, the Kentucky Republican declined to participate, and only told reporters it was a “good test.” His advisers said the GOP leader was only focused on recovering the majority – and pointed out that no one had voted against McConnell as leader, a position he has held since 2007.

The last senator to promise to vote against a party leader, Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, did not oppose Chuck Schumer because no alternative would be considered.

Trump -endorsed Senate candidate Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)-who was opposed by McConnell in a Senate primary in 2017-told POLITICO earlier this month that he would not exclude supporting McConnell for the leader, a Republican conference election every two years . But he also clarified that McConnell is not his favorite Republican, and he will support McConnell “if he is the most conservative.”

“There are some he’s more conservative than, and some aren’t,” he added. Tuberville said that “Brooks sees from the outside what we’re doing-he doesn’t see the inside of the meetings and the conversations and the strategy and all that.”

McConnell’s strength in the GOP was demonstrated at a party lunch on Thursday when he was praised by about half the caucus for his leadership, according to a senior Republican aide who spoke at the gathering. Conservative Sens Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) Announced McConnell’s decision to open a seat on the Supreme Court in 2016, while moderates Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also gave warm words for McConnell.

Other Republicans trying to identify themselves in the crowded primary in Missouri – including Rep. Billy Long, a longtime Trump ally who speaks for an endorsement – has refused to join the Greitens in opposition to McConnell, even as the former governor tried to make it the center issue in the campaign.

“We believe every running candidate who wants to call themselves MAGA should be asked,” said Dylan Johnson, Greitens campaign manager. “Will they support Mitch McConnell or not?”

Long said in a recent interview that he would not take the same step.

If Republicans are in the majority “and the only one on the Republican side is Mitch McConnell, you can’t tell me Eric Greitens didn’t vote for him,” Long said. “I mean, it’s a great talking point. I will give it to Eric. ”

State Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry about his position as GOP leader, as Rep. Vicky Hartzler in a statement said she “does not depend on anyone in Washington” and “will vote for leaders who stand up against the liberal madness that comes from the poisonous awakened minority.”

In Ohio, where Trump still has not endorsed the controversial Republican primary, only campaign frontrunner Josh Mandel responded to POLITICO’s questioning about his position on McConnell.

His spokesman pointed to Mandel’s previous comment on the issue, in which he questioned anyone running against McConnell and said he would not “inform hypothetical situations that are not in reality.”

JD Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” who retracted his previous speeches slandering Trump and seeking to present himself as a born-again MAGA devotee, in September told conservative podcast host Jack Murphy that he had doubts about McConnell’s continuity as leader, but lacked the commitment to oppose him.

“I have no idea who is supposed to be the majority leader of the Senate,” Vance said in the podcast. “I think McConnell has clearly shown that he’s a little, sometimes a little unaware of where the base is.”

Later in the interview, Vance said that “it’s time for us to go beyond the very old class of leadership that has dominated the Republican Party for so long,” though his campaign at POLITICO did not clarify whether he intended to vote against McConnell – who personally to be persuaded. Vance will run for the Senate in 2018 – if elected.

Sen. said. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that the candidate’s announcements about opposition to McConnell were “designed for an audience of one”: Trump.

“I’ve been through a few leadership elections here, and I’ve seen a lot of people out there trying to influence those elections,” Cornyn said. “And I don’t find it working because people are doing their own evaluation based on a lot of different criteria about who they want to be leaders.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

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