Republican Governors Lose Their Fear of Trump

There are two Republican parties.

That is, of course, a huge oversimplification. Republican pollsters have been known to classify GOP voters into seven categories or more, ranging from committed Christians to pro-business types to squishy never-Trumpers.

But when it comes to party choice in primaries, the split is widening. There’s the National Party, led by Donald Trump in Florida and Kevin McCarthy, the highest-ranking Republican in the House, with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who alternates between enemy and ally as the occasion demands.

And then there’s the GOP, which is rooted in state power, run by a core group of pragmatic, often less hard-lined governors who represent states as different as libertarian-oriented Arizona and deep-blue Massachusetts.

This week, the Republican Governors Association happened to meet in Nashville for its annual meeting. The guest of honor: Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, fresh off his 50 percentage point beating of David Perdue, a former senator and businessman dragged by Trump to a primary. Speaking at a dinner in Nashville Wednesday night, Kemp thanked his donors and fellow governors for their support.

It was a celebratory moment for a close-knit, brotherly group that was often in close contact during the crises of the coronavirus pandemic and the chaotic end to the Trump presidency. Trump relied especially hard on two of the bunch’s most influential governors, Kemp and Doug Ducey of Arizona, to support his fictional story of stolen elections.

Many GOP governors came out of the Trump years in strong political shape despite fierce criticism. According to polls by Morning Consult, all 10 of the country’s most popular governors are Republicans. And incumbent Republican governors have largely kept their hands clean as of Jan. 6, a toxic topic among corporate donors in particular.

To an extraordinary extent, these GOP governors have joined forces to fight Trump’s challengers and those who deserve his favor — raising millions and intervening in primaries to support their colleagues like never before.

“The president was on this campaign of revenge,” said Bill Palatucci, a New Jersey Republican National Committee member who is close to former government leader Chris Christie, describing the thoughts of those gathered in Nashville this week.

“But for many former and current Republican governors, it’s about doing the right thing for colleagues who have acquitted themselves well,” Palatucci added. Christie, a former RGA chairman who now helps run one of the group’s main fundraising branches, continues to be actively involved with the organization.

Those running for office, such as Kemp, have zealously avoided tangling with Trump. But others have been remarkably open about taking on the man in Mar-a-Lago, unlike most of their colleagues in Washington.

Pete Ricketts, the governor of Nebraska and the current co-chair of the governor’s group, along with Ducey, sided with Trump in his state’s Republican primary, Charles Herbster, and flew to Georgia to help Kemp.

Maryland Governor and RGA board member Larry Hogan has spoken of fighting “Trump cancel culture” and called for a “course correction” away from Trump; Christie seems to be quoted daily as criticizing the former president, including in a recent article in The Washington Post detailing the governors’ plans to end what he called Trump’s “vendetta tour.”

An ATM

However, going against Trump is costly.

The governor’s races don’t attract the same big money as the Senate races. Why not? Because more donors across the country care more about the next majority leader than, say, Nebraska’s leader.

But the money Republican governors have raised to support each other is significant.

They spent $4 million in Ohio to help Governor Mike DeWine, $5 million to help Kemp in Georgia, $2 million to support Governor Kay Ivey in Alabama, and gave more than $80,000 behind Idaho Governor Brad Little, who a bizarre challenge from his own lieutenant governor.

To complicate matters further, there are states where Trump and the RGA are on the same side. In Texas, Trump and the governors supported Governor Greg Abbott. In South Carolina, both parties support Governor Henry McMaster. And Trump also backs Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy.

An open race in Arizona

It gets trickier when there’s no incumbent governor.

The most interesting test is coming in Arizona, where Trump has backed Kari Lake, a charismatic former television host who is a staunch supporter of his baseless claims about voter fraud. Lake leads the primaries polls ahead of local Republican establishment and corporate favorite Karrin Taylor Robson and Matt Salmon, a former member of the U.S. House who was Republican nominee for governor in 2002 and lost by a whisker for Janet Napolitano.

Ducey, who is on a limited run, has said he “reserves the right” to support a candidate in the primary, and Robson, a developer who founded her own land-use strategy company, would be the natural choice. In 2017, he appointed her to the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs the state’s public universities. Robson was in Nashville this week, according to a local ABC affiliate in Phoenix.

The primary starts earlier than the August 2 date on the calendar suggests. Arizonans vote heavily by mail, and early ballots go to voters in July. That means the coming weeks are crucial and an approval could be coming soon.

Is Ducey coming off the sidelines? His confidants say nothing. If he did, it would be in a personal capacity. But because he co-chairs the RGA, his imprimatur would send a signal to donors and other insiders that Robson is the one backing.

It would also lead to another confrontation with Trump, who has blamed Ducey for undoing Arizona’s 2020 election results.

In the fall, when Ducey was considering running for Senate, Trump labeled him “the weak RINO governor from Arizona” and said he would “never get my approval or the support of MAGA Nation”!

He said much the same about Kemp – and lost.