I’ve covered the bulk of the major stories metastasizing in Republican and Democratic circles in the last article for this week dealing with the House, but I wanted to comment on every House primary that could conceivably fall apart for the GOP leading up to May 12^th, 2024. While I don’t expect (and hope not) that every one of these hypothetical primary situations plays out in the worst way possible, the last few scares and the upcoming primary run-off between Brandon Herrera and Congressman Tony Gonzalez give reason to believe that there might be danger in the primaries for Republican incumbents fueled by radicals. Let’s get to the scenarios.

            The most immediate example plays out on April 23^rd when Mark Houck, the pro-life activist, will be facing off against incumbent Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) in his light-blue Bucks County-based district. While Fitzpatrick has pre-emptively spent funds to crackdown on any possible primary challenge, the issue has become that Republicans have underperformed against primary challengers raising the worry that the DCCC will try their dark money strategy to unglue incumbents in battleground districts like they performed in 2022 to devastating effect. The likelihood of the party knocking off Fitzpatrick is less likely than other names, but still is a worry until the primary is over.

            The next state to consider is Indiana on May 7^th when there is a specific primary that will be watched for clues regarding the primary electorate. In contrast to the millions spent by AIPAC and associated forces against him, former Congressman John Hostettler (R-IN) has only spent tens of thousands in his bid for returning to Congress owing to his stance on Israel. With the rise of Christian nationalism and Hostettler’s underperformances during the later parts of his career, his return is the type of headache that Mike Johnson doesn’t want to contend with in the next Congress even though his seat is safely Republican. While he wouldn’t be at risk of losing an R+20 type of seat to Democrats, hopefully, he would be another Freedom Caucus stalwart who would make governing impossible taking the place of a moderate. It would also be a bad omen of what to expect for the remainder of the congressional primary season.

            The next major primary day for congressional primaries is the 14^th when Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia all have congressional primaries. The first obvious example of a wasted opportunity for a House pick-up will be in Maryland’s 6^th Congressional District if Republicans choose a poor candidate to go for the Western Panhandle-based district that state legislators attempted to make dip into the D.C. area. Based on what endorsements are available, it would be safe to assume that Mariela Roca (R-MD) is the best candidate for the election for Republicans based on the Newt Gingrich endorsement, while Neil Parrott would be expected to lose the seat again after two previous attempts and Dan Cox having ran on election denial (gee, wonder why he lost the gubernatorial race). While people with common sense would listen to Gingrich who actually has governed before, the worst-case scenario is that the hardcore populists boost Dan Cox over the finish line in a divided primary and then Cox runs his congressional campaign like he did his gubernatorial campaign. If that happens, the NRCC would be better off just triaging that race in favor of other winnable races given that Cox is an incredibly ineffective campaigner.

            Nebraska is worrying because of the radical leadership of the party organization endorsing challengers to all of the incumbents, most notably incumbent Don Bacon who represents the 2^nd Congressional District. He currently faces Dan Frei who trails in Bacon’s internal polling by about 50%. While this primary shouldn’t go off the rails, the issue here becomes that if it does, Democrats will become favored to flip the seat with Tony Vargas (D-NE) being assisted by Joe Biden performing better in the Omaha suburban areas. While the other primaries could present ugly pictures for Johnson, Frei’s challenge presents the ugliest challenge to his headcount directly.

            Concluding on the most concerning example of a convicted criminal potentially getting into the halls of Congress, J6er Derrick Evans (R-WV) is primarying Congresswoman Carol Miller (R-WV) for her safe Republican seat. While this seat is overwhelmingly Republican, even more than most historically GOP seats owing to the Trumpy nature of the state of West Virginia, most Congressmen and Congresswomen are not going to want to work with someone who was arrested in connection with the riot. Mike Johnson, someone coming from the law-and-order state of Louisiana, would have to explain him even being seated in Congress versus automatically being expelled every day he was allowed to remain congressman. That would make two Congressmen after George Santos (I-NY) on the Republican side that were forced to resign from Congress and expelled for reasons that plagued the GOP conference afterward.

            For those who would criticize my stance on the J6ers, let me explain by saying that I can hold the belief that minor offenders are being targeted too heavily by the law while also saying they should be punished for breaking the law. What they did was still a crime, but Democrats have overplayed their hands by suggesting their hatred of the former President should be inflicted to the maximum degree on those stupid enough to overindulge in his grievance politics after losing the 2020 election. That doesn’t mean that Evans, a man who was a state legislator for less than a few weeks and has been guilty of less than respectable behavior then and beforehand, is qualified to be a congressman over someone who has held the job for years and seems to be competent in stopping the bleeding of population from West Virginia when the state has lost people for decades. This doesn’t mean that West Virginia hasn’t continued to lose people, but the rate has slowed down enough to where some areas are growing and to where Miller’s district in Appalachia isn’t turning into a destitute backwater at risk of being annexed into a single at-large congressional district in the next Census.

(I would comment on the Thomas Massie/Eric Deters primary, but Massie keeps working his way towards being the worst Congressman in the chamber, so I’m inclined to say Kentuckians are cursed either way in that regard.)

Sources: 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in West Virginia – Wikipedia

2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Indiana – Wikipedia

2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska – Wikipedia

2024 Maryland’s 6th congressional district election – Wikipedia

2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania – Wikipedia

2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Kentucky – Wikipedia

AIPAC targets Republican Israel critic in rare GOP primary play (axios.com)

2024 Presidential Election Calendar: Primary, Caucus & Event Dates (nbcnews.com) (This is the primary schedule that I’m using. If anything changes, I will update it, but this is what it stood at when writing as of April 21^st, 2024.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Evans_(politician) (There are sources in the article for more information, but Evans has become a household name among the J6 crowd.)