In the 2022 midterm elections, several far-right candidates posted primary victories with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, only to botch key races with a general electorate that viewed them as too extreme.
And now, Republicans are nervously preparing for many of them to run again.
at least four of these candidates who ran and lost in 2022 are making it known that they are interested in running again in 2024, or have already announced offers. They are testing the party’s commitment this cycle to emphasize “candidate quality” and offer Democrats a glimmer of hope as they navigate a difficult Senate map and a narrow field of undecided electoral contests.
Jim Marchant, the failed Republican candidate for secretary of state in Nevada, recently launched his campaign to challenge a Democratic Senate incumbent. Kari Lake, who narrowly lost her gubernatorial bid in Arizona last fall and continues to lose court battles challenging her results, is poised to join him in a 2024 Senate bid.
Many party leaders breathed a sigh of relief Thursday night when Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator in Pennsylvania who decisively lost his gubernatorial race last year, announced he would not launch a Senate campaign.
But at the House level, Republicans Joe Kent in Washington and JR Majewski in Ohio, two MAGA-aligned candidates who strongly embraced Trump but fell short in districts where Republicans were favored, have already launched their next bids. Others may join soon.
All of these candidates put Trump’s bogus claims of a stolen election front and center in their campaigns, helping them overcome contested primaries but putting them at a disadvantage against independents in the general election. Their defeats have prompted some party leaders to suggest they may take a more active role in the primary process.
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., chairman of the Republican National Senatorial Committee, told NBC News in an interview last month that Republicans must appeal to voters «beyond the Republican base» to achieve victories next fall, something he said will be based in part on the campaign about «the future, without looking in the rear-view mirror or the past.»
“Winning elections is about adding and multiplying, not subtracting and dividing,” he said. “And that’s something every candidate should look in the mirror and say, ‘Am I a candidate who can first unite the Republican base and also appeal to independent voters?’ That’s the recipe.
Lake recently met with Daines and six other Republican senators to discuss his potential Senate run, a national Republican strategist said. Daines said he has asked potential candidates to share with him a plan for how they can win both a primary and a general election.
Daines, who endorsed Trump last month, believes the former president will be helpful with regard to who he does and does not support in the primaries. But last year, it was Trump who helped elevate many of these candidates through contested primaries with endorsements sought from him.
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment on whether it would support some of these same candidates this time.
Terry Sullivan, who was campaign manager for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said that while many candidates improve during a second run, there were «a lot of really bad candidates last time around.»
“And if you’re just a fundamentally flawed candidate the first time you run, you’re still a fundamentally flawed candidate the second time you run,” he said, adding: “You’ve always had weird candidates who run no matter what. And the difference now is that they are given more oxygen than in the past, and they are actually winning the primaries.»
If anything, what worries Republicans most about some of these candidates is, as Daines said, their insistence on relitigating the 2020 (and perhaps 2022) elections.
That seems unlikely to change. For example, Lake announced Tuesday that she would ask the Supreme Court to hear her latest case seeking to overturn her 2022 loss at the hands of Katie Hobbs, then the Arizona Democratic secretary of state.
“I think if Kari could recalibrate her message away from stolen election claims, she has enough raw political talent to make the race competitive,” the national Republican strategist said.
But that was not transferable to other 2022 losers seeking Senate seats this cycle.
“No,” said this person. «I think that’s specific to Kari Lake.»
In a statement, Lake said, «Electing Republicans from top to bottom on the ballot is, without a doubt, what it takes to save our great nation,» adding a request to «Stay Tuned» for an «important» announcement. in coming weeks.
Marchant did not respond to a request for comment.
Democrats have been mostly quiet in the burgeoning Republican Party primary camp, but outside groups have left the doors open to push the most extreme candidates they see as the easiest to beat, just as some Democrats did last cycle. In Nevada, Democrats have already begun targeting Marchant, highlighting comments he made. in a webcast earlier this year that he appeared to back military intervention in the 2024 vote.
“There has never been a greater gap between the type of candidates Republican primary voters demand and the type of candidates general election voters will accept,” said Democratic strategist Rich Luchette. “Republicans underperformed in the midterms because they nominated people who want to restrict women’s reproductive rights, cut Medicare and Medicaid, and support right-wing political violence, including the Jan. 6 takeover of the Capitol.”
Among competitive House races, few frustrated Republicans more than last year’s battle in Toledo, Ohio, where long-entrenched Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur was seen as vulnerable in a 9th congressional district redrawn to be more friendly to the Republican Party.
Majewski, an Air Force veteran who, before winning his party’s nomination, was best known for painting a Trump banner on his lawn, lost to Kaptur by 13 points, his campaign tanking by a Associated press report that he had misrepresented his military service. Others in the district complained about what they saw as a lazy and undisciplined campaign that failed to activate grassroots voters or take advantage of Kaptur’s weaknesses.
Undeterred, Majewski is seeking a rematch in 2024. Republican leaders in Ohio and nationally worry about a scenario in which his newfound familiarity with voters pulls him out of a crowded primary and prevents them from securing a winnable seat. .
“I can put up with a MAGA candidate who can win if he does something right, if he brings something to the table to help him get elected,” said an unaffiliated Republican official in Ohio’s 9th District who requested anonymity to speak candid. This person added that a Majewski nomination «undoubtedly» ensures a GOP defeat.
Another Republican operative involved in races across Ohio joked that it’s time for Majewski to «repaint the turf, not advertise a campaign again.»
Majewski did not respond to a request for comment.
In Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, Kent, who promoted Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and He suggested With no evidence that his own defeat was illegitimate, he believes that 2024 will be much more favorable to him than his last bet. Kent was able to defeat the then representative. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., in a primary last year after voting to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, only to lose to Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez in a swaying district to the right.
In a recent memo provided to NBC News, Kent’s campaign argued that his 2022 loss was because he outspent him during the primary and because his general election opponent did not yet have a congressional record against which could compete. This time, he doesn’t have an incumbent to face in a primary and can go on the offensive against a Democratic challenger who has a record «to expose,» the memo says.
“Every hurdle I faced in 2022 has been cleared by 2024: running against an incumbent from the same party, facing a barrage of establishment-backed attack ads in the primary, being underfunded by DC Republicans in the general election, turnout from depressed rural Republican voters, and a Democratic opponent who back then did not have the radical voting record that he does now,” Kent said by email.
He added that his narrow defeat was within the typical swing to the right that the district takes in presidential years.
“We have great reasons to be optimistic about 2024,” he said.
That’s not the only thing in the presidential cycle that could work in favor of some of these candidates. As Sullivan said, a presidential cycle means many more reporters will focus on Des Moines and Manchester, New Hampshire, rather than Pittsburgh and Phoenix.
“You’re going to have a lot less media scrutiny across the board,” he said. «It’s fundamentally different how it’s going to be covered.»