GOP fights for its voters to stop next Roy Moore

RENO, Nev. — Republicans who hope their Senate disaster in Alabama will scare voters away from other outsider, longshot conservatives should spend some time with Michele Evans.

Three thousand miles from the scene of Republican Roy Moore’s stunning defeat, the Nevada Republican doesn’t see a connection between Moore and her preferred Senate candidate, Danny Tarkanian, who is trying to unseat incumbent Dean Heller after several failed election attempts.

Evans isn’t swayed by the arguments from Republican Party leaders, who warn that conservative candidates with problematic track records such as Tarkanian or Arizona state Sen. Kelli Ward can’t win general election battles and will lead the GOP to lose seats in 2018.

“We risk losing more with Heller,” said Evans, the 51-yearold vice president of Active Republican Women of Las Vegas.

The clash between GOP leaders and voters who, like Evans, feel betrayed by them will come into sharp relief in a series of Republican primaries in early 2018. The outcomes will help determine Democrats’ prospects for taking back control of the Senate in a year that was supposed to be a disaster for the party. Democrats have to defend 10 seats in states Trump won, but are increasingly hopeful they can do that and flip two GOP-held seats to win the chamber.

Moore’s defeat in ruby-red Alabama has given Democrats some hope of making up ground in typically unfriendly territory. While Moore was an exceptionally bad candidate — he faced allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers as young as 14 when he was in his 30s, made repeated homophobic statements and expressed nostalgia for the era of slavery — other GOP primary challengers have baggage of their own.

Ward, who lost a primary challenge to Sen. John McCain in 2016, has appeared on Infowars, a right-wing radio show that traffics in conspiracy theories and held a hearing about the theory that exhaust trails from jets may be poisoning people, leading opponents to dub her “Chemtrail Kelli.” Chris McDaniel narrowly lost a primary challenge to Mississippi’s Sen. Thad Cochran in 2014 and also has a history of controversial statements on slavery and immigration.

Like Moore, Ward, McDaniel and Tarkanian have the backing of Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House adviser who’s vowed to wage political war against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by backing challengers to some incumbents. McConnell’s allies have sought to send a message that candidates who align with Bannon will pay the price. They’re hoping that sinks in not just with voters, but with donors whom insurgents would need to fund their challenges.