In Maryland, it looks like Republicans have nominated Dan Cox, a far-right Trumpist candidate for Governor. The Democratic Governors Association spent $2 million in the primary designed to promote Cox, seeing him as unelectable in the general election. Although Maryland is overwhelmingly blue, it has elected moderate Republican governors including the incumbent, Larry Hogan.
So sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I still think it’s slimy. But since Republicans are pulling out every slimy tactic they possibly can to make it harder for Dems to vote (and possibly even harder for Dem votes to count), I guess Dems have to play the only slime cards they have.
It “works” if the more extreme Republican does prove to be unelectable in the general election. In Maryland, that seems a safe bet. But in Pennsylvania, MAGA-hatted Republican candidate for governor Doug Mastriano is polling within a few points of his Democratic rival and is in real contention for the general election.
Yeah, if even one of these Dem-supported MAGAts actually wins, the strategists who launched these plans should be … you know, I can’t think of a just punishment that I can share without a mod warning.
I also think this is a more dangerous game to play in Governor races versus Senate races. It doesn’t really matter much whether a freshman Senator is a “moderate” or “MAGA” Republican. He or she is just one vote of 100, and on 95% of the votes that come up in the Senate they would both vote the same way anyway.
A Governor has a lot more discretionary authority (varying by state) such as control of state budgets and agencies, line-item vetoes, executive orders, appointments, etc. that a MAGA Republican could put towards nefarious use.
100% agreed.
Well, it ended up working for Pritzker, and it pretty much worked across the board for the Dems:
I know. I still don’t like it. 
Agreed, it sets a very bad precedent. This is just one more reason we need publicly funded elections.
Yeah, worked now in a number of states but there is a moral hazard in that others may try it where it is not such a well-calculated risk.
Also, this has the very undesirable effect of keeping the more sane, reasonable opponents out of their own party’s top leadership so the nutcases become entrenched as the baseline.
Great point. I can just hear the conversation:
“Alice, you’re the kind of sane, reasonable Republican who can win office in Illinois and help nudge the party back to normal, conservative values.”
“What’s the point? Pritzker will just spend millions backing some MAGAt wingnut against me.”