If some thought that scheduling an FBI raid one day before primary voting might panic Republican voters away from former President Trump’s candidates, they were sorely disappointed. Primary results this week showed a continuing pattern of results in support for candidates endorsed by Trump.
In Wisconsin, Tim Michels won the gubernatorial primary (47% to 42%) in another win for Trump-backed candidates this year and a defeat of the rest of the establishment Republican Party. Michels was running against Rebecca Kleefisch, the former Lt Governor, who was endorsed by former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, and others of the state’s Republican and business establishment. In another race, incumbent Republican speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, Robin Vos, narrowly escaped a shocking loss in his re-election bid against a Trump-backed upstart, Adam Steen. Vos had earned Trump’s disapproval recently when he backed off from Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election results were fraudulent and should be decertified. His challenger, with no paid staff and a grand total of $40,000 — barely enough to send out campaign mailers — came close to overturning the Speaker of the State Assembly.
In Connecticut, Trump-backed Leora Levy won in the Republican primary for Senate against Themis Klarides, backed by party moderates.
And in follow-up news on last week’s results, Jaimie Herrera-Beutler, an incumbent congresswoman from the state of Washington who had voted to impeach Trump in 2021, had to concede her loss in a close contest to her Trump-backed opponent. The other Republican from Washington who had voted to impeach, Dan Newhouse, bucked the tide and won his re-election.
