News Information and Media Site: How Trump has wreaked havoc on state parties

From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Ben Kamisar, Bridget Bowman and Alexandra Marquez

Friday, September 01, 2023

FIRST READ

From Arizona to Georgia, state GOPs are at war with themselves

Ben Gray / AP file

Happening this Friday: White House ramps up war room to battle possible impeachment… Republicans want more details about Mitch McConnell's health… Clarence Thomas discloses trips paid for by billionaire Harlan Crow… And Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy have campaigned more than all other GOP candidates since last week's debate, per NBC's Emily Gold.

But FIRST… The MAGA movement – combined with Donald Trump's 2024 presidential bid and continued influence – hasn't exactly been kind to state Republican parties across the country.

Just look at Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp had to reject calls by some state GOP lawmakers to impeach Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis over her role in indicting Trump.

"The bottom line is that in the state of Georgia as long as I'm governor, we're going to follow the law and the constitution, regardless of who it helps and harms politically," Kemp said. "Over the last few years, some inside and outside of this building may have forgotten that. But I can assure you that I have not."

Or look at Michigan, whose state GOP is led by election-denier Kristina Karamo – who lost last year's contest for secretary of state – and is mired in internal fighting and struggling to raise money.

"It's not going real well, and all you have to do is look at the facts," GOP state Rep. Lisa McClain told the New York Times. "The ability to raise money, we've got a lot of donors sitting on the sideline. That's not an opinion. That's a fact. It's just a plain fact. We have to fix that."

Or look at Texas (with the impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton) or Arizona (where the likes of Kari Lake and Blake Masters haven't left the stage).

And it appears to be having a financial impact, too, as key state Republican Party bank accounts are dwindling.

With a year-plus until the 2024 general election, state Republican parties are fighting among themselves, as the American Enterprise Institute's Matthew Continetti put it on "MTP NOW" yesterday.

"As the party becomes Trump-ified, you see it almost like a sun when it goes nova; it collapses in on itself," Continetti said.

And look at the electoral results in all of these states minus Texas: Georgia Republicans have now lost three contests for U.S. Senate; Michigan Republicans have been shut out in statewide races since 2016; and Arizona Republicans have racked up loss after loss.

Strikingly, this same GOP-vs.-GOP divide exists in DC, but it hasn't caused this same level of disruption as we're seeing in the states.

Well, at least not yet – as a government shutdown and a possible presidential impeachment remain live balls in the next few months.

Headline of the day

The number of the day is ... 12 each

That's how many campaign events businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott have done since last week's GOP debate, per NBC News' Emily Gold.

That's more than anyone else in the rest of the field, as Ramaswamy looks to keep up the momentum from the debate (even as his rivals keep attacking him) and as Scott looks to gain traction after a quiet debate performance.

Other numbers

The number of years in prison Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader convicted on seditious conspiracy during the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced to on Thursday.

Two dozen

The number of lawyers, aides and other staffers who are part of a new White House war room intended to respond to calls by House Republicans for Biden's impeachment.

The number of trips from 2022 that Justice Clarence Thomas reported on his annual financial disclosure report that billionaire Harlan Crow paid for.

The number of Mexican states that have decriminalized abortion.

At least 91,000

How many migrants who were arrested by Border Patrol crossing the U.S.-Mexico border as a part of a family in August, an all-time high, per The Washington Post.

400

The number of U.S. troops who will remain at the U.S.-Mexico border through Sept. 30 to provide support to law enforcement there, NBC News' Courtney Kube and Julia Ainsley report.

4.7%

The share of overdose deaths that involved counterfeit drugs in 2021, per the CDC, more than doubling since mid-2019.

Blog / Meet The Press

Eyes on 2024: Tim Scott downplays 'racial divide'

Charlie Neibergall / AP

At an event in Iowa on Thursday, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., downplayed the notion that there's a racial divide in this country, blaming "the left" for weaponizing the racial differences among Americans, per NBC News' Nnamdi Egwuonwu.

"There is, however, an insidious force that benefits by weaponizing race and class against the American people. It's a radical force on the left that benefits from having us all feel like we're in cultural quicksand," Scott told a voter who asked him how he would heal the "racial divide" in the U.S.

Scott, the only Black candidate in the race for the Republican presidential nomination and the only Black person in the room at Thursday's event, per Egwuonwu, has downplayed the notion that there is a racial divide in this country since he got into the race.

"From cotton to Congress in one lifetime," Scott said in campaign ads while he ran for re-election to the Senate last year, referring to his grandfather who picked cotton and later watched Scott become an elected official.

In ads run by his presidential campaign this year, he points to his own story for proof against a racial divide.

"It pains my soul to see the Biden liberals attacking every rung of the ladder that helped me climb. The radical left says we're an evil, declining country. I say the truth of my life disproves your lies," he tells viewers in one TV ad.

Scott's comments at Thursday's event came as he ramps up his schedule in Iowa, hitting multiple events this week after he appeared at just four events in the state in July, Egwuonwu reports.

In other campaign news…

Not knocking: NBC News' Allan Smith and Natasha Korecki scooped that the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC is halting door knocking in Nevada and California (as well as other Super Tuesday states) as it redoubles its focus on Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Hurricane politics: Politico reports on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' "complicated relationship with disaster aid," while President Joe Biden will head to Florida Saturday after a hurricane swept through the state earlier this week.

Not backing the blue: One of former President Donald Trump's top New Hampshire aides said during a video filmed on Jan. 6, 2021 near the U.S. Capitol that police officers should "go hang yourself."

On the offensive: Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is out with a new campaign ad attacking his opponent, GOP state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, on abortion. "When a woman or girl becomes pregnant from rape, the trauma is unimaginable. Daniel Cameron thinks a nine-year-old rape survivor should be forced to give birth. Nobody, no child should ever have to go through that," Jefferson County Prosecutor Erin White says in the ad.

All in the family: West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin's daughter has emerged as one of his top advisers as he charts his political path forward, NBC News' Julie Tsirkin reports.

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