Democrats are complaining that Republicans are interfering in their primaries in congressional races across the country. Evidently, they forgot that they did exactly the same thing in GOP primaries just four years ago.Democrats are unhappy with Republicans and GOP-aligned groups for boosting more beatable Democrats in primaries in California, Texas, Maine, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska, among others. This is typically done through ad campaigns or mailers that treat the more radical, beatable Democrats in the race as the Republicans’ chief opponent, signaling to Democratic voters which candidate the GOP is “scared” of in hopes of getting those voters to boost that candidate through the primary.
As Johnny Garcia, an establishment Democratic candidate in Texas, said, “No conspiracy here: a dark money, Republican Super PAC is trying to prop up my opponent because they’re scared of our campaign.” He accused both President Donald Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott of “meddling in my election” by propping up his deranged antisemitic Democratic rival. (Garcia did ultimately end up defeating her).
Garcia is right not to like this practice. It is manipulative and possibly destructive, as it risks seeing some of these more radical candidates actually succeed in breaking through in general elections. But Garcia has no one to blame but his own party leaders, because this strategy became broadly mainstreamed by Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections, where Democrats hoped to blunt a possible red wave by propping up election deniers in GOP primaries.
