A risky Democratic Party strategy of spending millions of dollars to help far-right Republican candidates win internal party contests appears to be paying off in the midterm elections in the United States on Tuesday, with Democrats winning – them in several electoral races, notes Reuters, quoted by Agerpres.
The Democrats’ bet seems to have won. PHOTO: https://byeberry.com/
Critics inside the Democratic Party had warned that election campaigns in favor of candidates who have taken up former President Donald Trump’s allegations of fraud in the 2020 election could help elect the very people who Democrats tell Americans pose a serious risk to democracy.
But the supporters of the controversial strategy calculated that strengthening these candidates to the detriment of the more moderate Republicans in the internal elections (primaries) will make them easier to defeat competitors in the “midterms”.
The bet seems to have been a winner: Wednesday’s projections gave winners to all eight Democratic candidates who benefited from this strategy. These results could provide a pattern for the upcoming presidential elections in 2024.
However, critics such as former Democratic congressman Tim Roemer said the strategy is ultimately destructive because it sacrifices the party’s moral principles and helps amplify Trump’s false allegations about the integrity of the 2020 election.
In New Hampshire, incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan easily won re-election, helping her party’s chances of retaining control of the House. Hassan defeated Republican Don Bolduc, who had been helped with $3.1 million by a Democratic advocacy group, Senate Majority PAC, during the Republican primary. Bolduc had been criticized as too extremist even by members of his own party.
Democrats also defended two House seats in New Hampshire and won one in Michigan, with their candidates scoring clear victories over Republicans who were in denial about the outcome of the 2020 election.
Also, in four states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland and Illinois – the Democratic gubernatorial candidates won easily over the Republican ones, after promoting electoral advertising for this year’s Republican primaries.
Michigan’s House race, in which Democrat Hillary Scholten is projected to defeat Republican John Gibbs, could have major consequences, allowing Democrats to pick up a seat from Republicans and offset losses in other seats .
Although Republicans are expected to take control of the House, so far the election has not produced the landslide victory they were looking for.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) drew criticism this summer when it spent $2.4 million in the Republican primary to help Gibbs defeat Peter Meijer, one of 10 Republicans in the House. who voted to impeach Donald Trump following the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol.
According to a tally compiled by Reuters, Democratic groups spent at least $51.5 million in this year’s Republican primaries. But they did not always get the desired result: in Colorado, Nevada, California and Virginia, the candidates they supported did not win the primary election.
Most of that money was spent in Illinois, where the incumbent governor, Democrat JB Pritzker, and the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) poured $34.5 million into the Republican primary to undermine a relatively moderate candidate. Pritzker was easily re-elected on Tuesday.
The DGA also promoted publicity to amplify the “denier” status of conservative Republicans in Maryland and Michigan who won the primaries but lost the general election.
“You’d define early Republicans and keeping them out of their extremist box was crucial in defeating the denialists,” said DGA spokesman David Turner
