Why did Peter Meijer do so poorly in Kent County?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The main reason is that too many of the folks there whose support he needed are now Democrats or at least strongly anti-Trump independents.  Kent County is the part of the district where this trend (which shows no signs of slowing down) is strongest.  However, there are some much smaller factors that probably also contributed (I’d say at the margins, but in a race as close as this primary, who knows what the deciding factor was?):

- Meijer kinda tried to have it both ways towards in late 2021/early 2022 whenhe’d make occasional statements vaguely implying that Biden was a greater threat to democracy than Trump.  However, this complicated his messaging.  This was when I knew his own internals were showing him in a really bad spot and IIRC he even told a reporter in early-to-mid 2022 that he fully expected to lose his primary.  

Anyway, I think Meijer would’ve been better off sticking to the original strategy of just owning his impeachment vote and running as a bipartisan champion of democracy.  He shifted back to that towards the end, but it likely muddled the messaging a bit in the meantime.  

- I also think redistricting really, really hurt Meijer in the primary in a way that has largely gone undiscussed.  Meijer originally had like 3-4 different C-list Trumpist primary opponents who all seemed pretty determined to stick it out to the primary.  Even if one had dropped out, Meijer did well enough that he likely would’ve won under such a scenario.  

However, all of the challengers except Gibbs were drawn out of the district under the new map.  One of them (Norton) even got like ~35% challenging a pretty Trumpy Republican incumbent, so Gibbs and him would’ve likely split the vote enough on their own for Meijer to win.  Unfortunately for Meijer, Gibbs ended up as his only opponent which gave the Trumpers plenty of time to consolidate.  

- Finally, the DCCC did some last minute ratf***ing to boost Gibbs b/c he’d be a far easier GE opponent.  I doubt this mattered too much, but the race was close enough that it’s worth mentioning.  My views on this are a little weird.  

I strongly support the DCCC’s meddling in Republican congressional primaries in districts with a potentially competitive GE.  This race was no exception and the beltway pundits need to stop whining about this.  Their job is to elect as many Democrats as possible and Meijer losing shifts this seat from Lean R -> Lean D.  However, if I lived in the district, then I would crossover to the Republican primary this cycle and vote for Meijer.  He risked his career to stand up for American democracy and that should count for something.  If you’re a Democratic operative than the right thing to do is to help boost Gibbs in the primary, but for me as a private individual, I want Republicans to see that really standing up to Trump (as opposed to just being disliked by him for some random arbitrary reason) isn’t automatic political suicide in a Republican primary.

I doubt this seat will decide control of the House, so it becomes a win-win.  Either we likely flip a Republican district in 2022 and hold onto it for most/all of the decade (worst case, it doesn’t flip until 2024) or a truly anti-Trump Republican beats Trump’s pick in a genuinely competitive primary.
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On a different note, I really hope Newhouse and JHB win Re-election.  These are both safe Republican districts, so they are likely the best we will get.  Newhouse’s challenger in particular, Loren Culp, seems  to be an especially despicable individual.  Plus, in a way, there might be more utility in showing that one can survive being anti-Trump in a Safe Republican district than showing that one can survive it in a suburban swing district.  The latter is likely much easier to handwave away.  But I digress…