For those who remember the early days of the Trump Administration, some names in the Republican conference created headaches because of their ethical issues in Congress and consequently ran for re-election during the blue midterm year of 2018. While Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA) would later be forced to resign from Congress for misusing campaign funds, the most notable instance of a corrupt Trump Republican that the media gravitated toward to slam was Chris Collins (R-NY) who was charged with insider trading. Despite the effort to defeat him in the 2018 elections, Democrats to the upset of New York Democrats that cycle. The Democrat with that dubious dishonor of having not defeated Collins, Nate McMurray, has since burned his bridges with the local Democratic Party and gone from local rising star in the state party to pariah in just a few short years. Why is this relevant?
McMurray recently ran (and lost) for the Democratic nomination at the convention to become the nominee for the 26th Congressional District special election based in Buffalo, New York, a contest that could theoretically be competitive for Republicans given Erie County’s not-as-heavy Democratic lean. That would be the case, but Democrats have wasted no time in funding their candidate, state senator Tim Kennedy (D-NY), while the Republican Gary Dickson has barely fundraised for the contest at all. In fact, the GOP has almost entirely conceded the election deciding that having a candidate to contest it appears to be enough for the party apparatus to do from a national spotlight perspective. This is as the narrow margin in the House of Representatives threatens to enable the Freedom Caucus to destroy Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) narrow hold on power and hand control of the chamber to Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Would Republicans have flipped the city of Buffalo after the lightly-modified map changes to New York’s congressional map? Probably not, but the lack of effort from national Republicans is something to behold.
To give an idea how much of a dud McMurray would’ve been in the special election versus Kennedy, McMurray recently sent out a message calling for the death of the MAGA movement. While conservative pundit Jack Posobiec, never the wiser, confused the ideology with the supporters in condemning the movement, the foot-in-mouth comment from McMurray will only hurt the former candidate if he runs for future office as Democrats look at him as damaged goods with self-destructive political tendencies. It also speaks to how much of a wasted opportunity and sleeper flip this race could’ve been given that a state senator was the best candidate the Democrats could muster since the Erie County Executive and mayor of Buffalo both bowed out of consideration. Nevertheless, with the election on April 30th, 2024, one has to hope that the GOP might pull out a performance that is less embarrassing that some of the recent underperformances in the special elections.
To conclude on the general context of what spurred the anti-MAGA comment, McMurray was cheering on Ukraine which has become a focal point of opposition among right-leaning members of the GOP conference. This is despite many of those same members of Congress claiming to support Reagan’s vision of strength which was unabashedly anti-Russian in nature in standing up to the then-Soviet Union instead of conceding the war to the Russian military. While I am not a fan of a forever conflict, the constant unfolding of new wars and conflicts globally suggest that the idea of being a non-interventionist dove doesn’t work anymore as an absolute principle and that the golden opportunity to drain the Russian Army and Navy of it’s fighting potential to keep it from waging war against NATO in the future shouldn’t be squandered so MTG, Bob Good, Thomas Massie, or any of the Freedom Caucus members can have bragging rights to voters with insufficient foreign policy knowledge to where they shouldn’t be weighing in. In other words, you can avoid appeasing the fringe without using such coarse language that invokes ugly connotations of violence and extremism.
Sources: 2024 New York’s 26th congressional district special election – Wikipedia
Ex-California Congressman Duncan Hunter Sentenced to 11 Months in Prison – NBC 7 San Diego (nbcsandiego.com)Former N.Y. Rep. Christopher Collins sentenced to federal prison for insider trading (nbcnews.com)
The Conservatarian Millennial 