These 9 high-profile GOP candidates all have ties to group behind Project 2025: report

23 July 2024

The amount of attention the far-right Heritage Foundation and its authoritarian Project 2025 playbook for the next Republican administration have been getting is also ensnaring several major GOP figures.

On Tuesday, Democratic election attorney Marc Elias' Democracy Docket website delved into the ties nine high-ranking Republicans have to Project 2025. Some of those links are direct while others are more tangential. However, these Republicans are likely to be asked about their connections to the controversial initiative on the campaign trail as Project 2025 and its proposals continue to garner media coverage. In fact, one recent poll found that just one in 10 Americans had a favorable view of Project 2025 after learning about it.

1. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Indiana)

Democracy Docket reported that as chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Banks published a budget blueprint that was praised by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. That document called for funds to build a border wall, diverting money from several federal agencies to boost the military budget and protecting Americans from what he referred to as "the Radical Woke Agenda."

"The Republican Study Committee, led by my friends Chairman Jim Banks and the RSC Budget and Spending Task Force Chair Kevin Hern, have put forward an important Blueprint to Save America," Roberts said in a statement. "The RSC is going on offense, setting the tone for what conservatives must do when the people take back control."

2. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Cruz, who is running for a third U.S. Senate term this November, previously spoke at a Heritage Foundation event in 2019 in the wake of former President Donald Trump's first impeachment. He complained about the House's impeachment over Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which the former president threatened to withhold aid unless Ukraine investigated then-candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Cruz accused House Democrats of impeaching Trump "without an article claiming a criminal violation."

"There’s no federal statute that makes abuse-of-power — what they’ve called it — a criminal offense. They’ve just made this up," Cruz said.

3. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska)

Like Cruz, Fischer is also running for reelection this fall. Democracy Docket reported that Fischer spoke at a virtual Heritage Foundation session on the "future of nuclear modernization" in 2021. One of Project 2025's proposals is to bring back nuclear weapons testing at Yucca Mountain in Nevada (less than 100 miles from Las Vegas). The document also calls for radioactive waste to be deposited there again after former President Barack Obama ended it in 2009. Nevada Republican Governor Joe Lombardo, who has endorsed Trump, is against the proposal.

4. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri)

Hawley, who is running for a second Senate term this fall, has common ground with one of Project 2025's core goals and has spoken at several Heritage events. In its report on the document, People Magazine called it "a blueprint for marrying church and state at the highest levels of government," which is a goal of Christian nationalists. Rather than run from that label, Hawley embraced it at a recent conservative conference.

“Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian Nation. So I am,” Hawley said. “And some will say that I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do.”

5. Former Governor Larry Hogan (R-Maryland)

Maryland's former two-term Republican governor is now the Republican nominee for the Old Line State's open Senate seat. Despite his more moderate reputation, Hogan still elevated a senior fellow at Heritage to a post within his administration in 2017. To his credit, Hogan has since distanced himself from Project 2025, saying it would put the country on a "dangerous path" in a Washington Post op-ed.

6. Governor Jim Justice (R-West Virginia)

West Virginia's billionaire coal baron governor — who switched parties from Democrat to Republican in 2017 — is likely to win the U.S. Senate seat left open by the outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (I-West Virginia). In 2021, Justice signed a bill into a law that directs education funds from public schools to home schools and private school tuition. Heritage lauded the bill and credited one of their experts for advocating for it in the West Virginia legislature. Project 2025 calls for the total elimination of the Department of Education in favor of "parental authority," meaning it would champion policies that weaken public education while strengthening home school programming.

7. Rep. David Schweikert (R-Arizona)

In Obama's last year in office, his Department of Health and Human Services put a regulation in place to protect LGBTQ+ youth in foster care. Project 2025 has called for repealing that regulation, which advocacy group DemocracyForward estimated would impact more than 368,000 kids. In 2020, Schweikert participated in a virtual Heritage Foundation session on proposed changes to the foster care system.

8. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida)

Florida's junior U.S. senator is currently in a tight race for reelection against former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Florida), who is within striking distance of Scott in the latest polls. Scott — who is in the running to become the next Republican leader in the Senate after Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) retires from the role next year — participated in Heritage's five-part video series on inflation and the economy. Scott repeatedly blasted the Biden administration for higher prices, even though real wages (meaning inflation-adjusted) are up and the rate of inflation has leveled off significantly.

9. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi)

Mississippi's senior U.S. senator, who is the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is running for a fourth term this fall. In January, he participated in a Heritage Foundation talk on "Restor[ing] America's Military Power." Project 2025 has called for rescinding Pentagon policy that pays for female service members' travel costs in the event they have to travel out of their home state to get an abortion — the same policy Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) protested in his months-long blockade of military promotions. Project 2025 also proposes restoring Trump's ban on transgender Americans serving in the military.

Click here to read Democracy Docket's full report.

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