Safe’ GOP incumbents face party attacks
OKLAHOMA CITY — Republican U.S. Sen.
James Lankford would seem to have all the conservative
credentials he’d need to coast to reelection in deep-red Oklahoma.
A devout Baptist, Lankford was the director of the nation’s largest Christian youth camp for more than a decade. He
speaks out regularly against abortion and what he describes as excessive government
spending. And his voting record in the
Senate aligned with former President Donald Trump’s position nearly 90% of the time.
But like several other seemingly safe GOP incumbents, Lankford, who didn’t even draw a primary opponent
in 2016, finds himself
under fierce attack by a challenger in his own party. The antagonist is a 29-year-old
evangelical minister and political newcomer who managed to draw more than 2,000 people to a “Freedom Rally” headlined by Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, at which Lankford was accused of being not conservative enough.
“When James (Lankford) certified the big lie, he joined the big lie,” Jackson Lahmeyer told the raucous crowd in Norman, citing Lankford’s failure to endorse Trump’s false claims about the election outcome. The
state’s GOP chairman, John Bennett, has already endorsed Lahmeyer in the race.
Similar scenes are playing out in other red states where ultra right-wing challengers
are tapping into anger among Republicans over Trump’s
election loss and coronavirus-related lockdowns. Some incumbents suddenly are
scrambling to defend their right flank, heating up their own rhetoric on social media and ripping into President Joe Biden at every opportunity.
In Texas, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who faces a contested reelection primary next year,
is pushing looser gun laws than he ever previously embraced and proposing unprecedented state actions, including promises to
build more walls on the Mexican border.
“I think it’s unquestionably attributable to the aftermath of the 2020 election and the insurrection and former President Trump’s claims of
voter fraud,” said
Alan Abramowitz, a
political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
Some conservative incumbents are obvious targets for rightwing challenges —
notably U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney in Wyoming
and Anthony Gonzalez in Ohio, who voted to impeach Trump. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s offense was refusing to block
Georgia’s electoral votes from being awarded to Biden.
But with the 2022 election cycle approaching, the backlash is also touching
even those who backed Trump consistently through countless controversies. Texas’ Abbott echoed Trump’s partisan positions and has banked $55 million in campaign funds,
more than any sitting governor in history.