At each of Trump’s impeachment trials, Hoeven voted to acquit the president, and he later voted to filibuster the creation of an independent commission investigating Jan. 6. The harshest statement the senator mustered after the Capitol riot was saying Trump “should not have encouraged the protest.”
In today’s GOP, however, it may not be enough for a politician to have simply not offended Trump or his supporters in order to be safe. Republicans might have to recast themselves in Trump’s belligerent and often intentionally offensive image…
If primary contests come down to MAGA style over conservative substance, though, some incumbents have run proudly on the latter—for now.
Lankford, for instance, faces a challenge from the far-right Tulsa pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, who has been endorsed by the Oklahoma GOP chairman. In an interview in the Capitol on Wednesday, Lankford said the challengers are premised “not on policies” but “on volume.”
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