<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp, but to one of his most controversial political allies, that morass has widened \u2014 to now encompass the Republican Party. Appearing on Fox News\u2019 \u201cHannity\u201d show in October, former White House strategist Steve Bannon called the GOP a \u201cglobalist clique.\u201d Bannon, who is executive chair of the far-right Breitbart News Network, promised to use his media platform and funding connections to challenge every Republican incumbent (apart from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz) with his own \u201ccoalition\u201d of candidates for the 2018 midterm elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are declaring war on the Republican establishment that does not back the agenda that Donald Trump ran on,\u201d Bannon said, adding that it would be a long-term effort to first replace Republican incumbents, and then Democrats. That has put some Western Republicans in Bannon\u2019s crosshairs, as senators from Utah to Arizona have been either tepid in their support, or outright critical of Trump. Here\u2019s a list of potential targets:<\/p>\n
Flake has been one of Trump\u2019s most outspoken Republican critics from the get-go. In a Senate speech on Oct. 24, Flake issued a searing critique of Trump and the Republican Party. \u201cMr. President, I will not be complicit or silent,\u201d Flake said, before announcing he would not seek reelection after his first term finishes in January 2019. He continued: \u201cWe were not made great as a country by indulging in or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorifying in the things that divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump responded by tweeting that Flake\u2019s decision to not seek reelection was because he had \u201czero chance of being elected.\u201d That\u2019s not true, but it would have been a competitive race. Flake\u2019s Senate seat was considered \u201ctoss-up\u201d by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, meaning it could go either red or blue. On Oct. 17, Bannon threw his support toward Flake\u2019s would-be primary challenger, former state Sen. Kelli Ward, at a campaign fundraiser in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Great America PAC, which raised $30 million for Trump in 2016, has also pledged support to Ward and has begun donating to her campaign.<\/p>\n
A first-term senator, Heller is vulnerable in the 2018 midterms because Nevada went for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The Cook Report ranks his seat a \u201ctoss-up.\u201d Heller did not endorse Trump during the 2016 campaign, but he told the Nevada Independent in August that he did vote for him. Heller voted against his party\u2019s attempts to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act, a primary goal of the current Republican-controlled Congress. \u201cHe wants to remain a senator, doesn\u2019t he?\u201d Trump asked the room during a televised meeting on health care with Republican senators, referencing Heller\u2019s voting record.<\/p>\n
Bannon supports Heller\u2019s opponent Danny Tarkanian, who has run five unsuccessful campaigns for Republican office, including a House bid last year. Tarkanian has cast Heller as part of the \u201cclique\u201d Bannon is seeking to unseat, calling him \u201cD.C. Dean Heller\u201d and an \u201cestablishment politician.\u201d Tarkanian has fervently supported Trump on policy and in media appearances since the election. Bannon met with Tarkanian privately to express his support, according to Politico. Meanwhile, Heller is trailing Tarkanian by as much as 6 points in recent polls.<\/p>\n
Bannon has also named longtime lawmaker Barrasso as a targeted, albeit \u201csafe\u201d incumbent. Wyoming is a deeply red state, and Barrasso has good standing with voters there with his solidly conservative voting record. However, in his war with the GOP, Bannon has said that \u201cjust voting is not enough.\u201d In October, the New York Times reported that Bannon was encouraging Erik Prince, founder of the controversial security contractor Blackwater, to challenge Barrasso. Prince, who considers himself libertarian, has never held public office. He is the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.<\/p>\n
Prince has not officially announced his candidacy, and if he does, will have to work to overcome the stigma of being the candidate who has not spent much time in the state he may campaign in. The Times reports he had an address in Wapiti, Wyoming, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.<\/p>\n
Hatch, the longest-serving Republican senator in Congress, has not yet announced if he will seek reelection in 2018, but his seat is already on Bannon\u2019s list. Utah\u2019s reaction to Trump\u2019s campaign was mixed. Even though the state is Republican, politicians and voters objected to Trump\u2019s characterization of immigrants and his harsh rhetoric. Since the election, Hatch has emerged as a Trump ally, helping the president select Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court and convincing the president to review both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments. But he has also been critical at times.<\/p>\n
So far, no one has come forward as a challenger with Bannon\u2019s blessing, but Utah state Rep. Mike Noel has made overtures. \u201cHe knows I\u2019m a lot like Trump,\u201d Noel said of Bannon in an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune. \u201cWin or lose, I\u2019m going to tell it like it is.\u201d Noel was under consideration to direct the Bureau of Land Management under Trump. Boyd Matheson is another potential challenger. Matheson is a former chief of staff with Sen. Mike Lee, and president of the Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank based in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n
This article was first published on hcn.org on Nov. 7.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" strategist Steve Bannon aims to unseat incumbents in the 2018 midterms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,299,265,315],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-102931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-national-elections","tag-politics","tag-president-donald-trump"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102931"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=102931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}