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The Democratic Party contributed to the July 19 election victory of Dan Cox, a Donald Trump-backed conspiracy theorist, in the Republican primary in Maryland. The Democrats have thus interfered in several primaries of the Republican Party in view of the midterm elections. They favored the most extreme candidates, considered easier to beat. A risky bet.
Dan Cox is a big fan of Donald Trump, an avid conspirator and a staunch antivax. He also won, on Tuesday July 19, the primary on the right to become the Republican candidate for governor of Maryland in the November 2022 elections.
A surprise victory in a moderate state where the outgoing governor, Larry Hogan, is one of the main members of the anti-Trumpist current of the Republican Party.
“The Democrats have played into the hands of a Qanonist crackpot”
This choice for an extremist candidate supported by Donald Trump should be bad news for the Democratic Party. Its leaders tirelessly repeat that they believe that the former American president and his troops are a threat to democracy. This is the whole point of the hearings of the parliamentary committee in charge of the investigation into the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
But in Maryland, it is not. It’s even quite the opposite: Dan Cox owes his victory in large part to the support of the Democrats. The Democratic Governors Association has, in fact, spent more than a million dollars on advertisements which have improved the chances of the most extreme candidate against Kelly Schulze, the protege of the incumbent governor and the favorite of the moderate Republicans. .
“Dan Cox was almost unknown to voters in Maryland and Kelly Schulze’s victory seemed certain before the intervention of the Democrats in this campaign”, underlines Jean-Éric Branaa, lecturer at the University Panthéon-Assas and specialist in politics. and American society.
The official purpose of these commercials was to warn against Dan Cox. But the messages – he is Donald Trump’s favourite, a staunch defender of the right to bear arms and an anti-abortion activist – had enough to mobilize the most conservative electorate.
No one was fooled either. Larry Hogan, who was quick to say that he would not support Dan Cox, regretted that “Democrats [aient] so does the game of a Qanonist madman [une théorie du complot selon laquelle les États-Unis sont dirigés en secret par une secte de démocrate sataniste qui sacrifie des enfants, NDLR]”. Even Fox News pointed out that Democrats helped Donald Trump’s colt in Maryland.
The Democrats’ bet is that a fanatic like Dan Cox will be easier to beat than a more moderate candidate like Kelly Schulze. “It’s an investment: the Association of Democratic Governors said it was better to spend a million during the Republican primary than several million afterwards to try to beat the favorite of the outgoing governor”, summarizes Jean-Éric Branaa.
The Machiavelli of the Democratic Party
For this expert, Maryland was “the perfect laboratory for this type of strategy which is a novelty of this electoral cycle”. It is a state where the incumbent governor could not run again because he had already been elected twice – which represents the legal maximum of successive terms in Maryland – and which had voted in majority for Joe Biden against Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election.
After pushing Republicans into the arms of Dan Cox, Democrats are now hoping that pointing out a few truths about this controversial figure will be enough to discredit him completely.
They have already begun by recalling that this Republican had attended a conference of conspirators who assured, in particular, that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were not the work of Al-Qaeda. Dan Cox also funded buses to transport far-right activists to Washington, where they took part in the assault on the Capitol. He even tweeted during this attack that former Vice President Mike Pence was a “traitor” to the Trumpian cause.
In a state like Maryland, this should be enough to mobilize the Democrats, and “push independents and moderate Republicans to vote against Dan Cox”, assures Jean-Éric Branaa.
But in other states? The Democrats have, in fact, used the same tricks in Illinois and Pennsylvania where they have spent millions to help the most conservative and pro-Trump candidates – respectively Darren Bailey and Doug Mastriano – to win the primaries on the right. Two states where they succeeded in their Trojan horse operation, unlike Colorado, where the Democratic favorite failed to win.
A strategy that is not unanimous on the left. “I find it shocking that groups of Democrats spend crazy sums to help candidates who, if elected, would do everything to weaken democracy,” said Kathleen Rice, an elected Democrat from New York, questioned. by the New York Times.
But, precisely, for these modern Machiavelli, the most extremist candidates have no chance. The page of triumphant Trumpism is about to be turned in the United States. “Several candidates supported by Donald Trump in the primaries have experienced resounding defeats, such as, recently, in Georgia. This suggests that a gap is widening between the Republican Party, which continues to veer ever more to the far right, and an electorate which is becoming more moderate,” explains Jean-Éric Branaa.
Russian roulette
Critics of this strategy point out that we must not forget the other unknown factor in the electoral equation: the popularity of Joe Biden. It is currently not looking good and could drop further between now and the mid-term elections in November. “With persistent inflation and the economic situation which could deteriorate further, the Republican candidates whom the Democrats today deem ineligible could win simply because they are not on the same side as Joe Biden”, summarizes the New York Times.
The fear is that the Democrats will make the same mistake as in 2016, when they underestimated the chances of Donald Trump, presented as a weirdo who would have no chance against a serious candidate like Hillary Clinton.
For moderate Republicans, this boost to extremists would prove that Democrats have not learned from their mistake. Worse, if in 2016 we did not yet know what Donald Trump was capable of, this time it is “playing Russian roulette” with democracy, regrets Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland.
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