Rep. Chip Roy of Texas in Kissimmee, Florida on August 2, 2024 (Gage Skidmore)
Republicans who have lost their primary races are blaming everyone but themselves, NOTUS found on Thursday.
Reporters Daniella Diaz and Reese Gorman spoke to some of the GOP House members who have fallen in primaries for other offices about what they think is going wrong.
"In just the last few weeks, Rep. Dusty Johnson didn’t make the runoff to be South Dakota’s GOP nominee for governor, Rep. Randy Feenstra lost his bid to be Iowa’s GOP nominee for governor and Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace both didn’t make a runoff Tuesday night to win the GOP nomination to compete to be South Carolina’s next governor," the report said.
Johnson complained about "the service," though it's unclear if he's complaining about the cell phone service or something else.
“The reality is there’s a reason House members are losing with a greater frequency than people expect,” he said when speaking to NOTUS. “And that’s because the service in the House is not a particularly big asset right now.”
He only got 23.4 percent in the governor's race.
He also blamed the GOP leadership for forcing them to take a number of tough votes that ended up in attack ads against them from GOP opponents.
“There was just a deluge of negative advertising around the whole RINO [Republican In Name Only] and career politician attack,” Johnson complained. “That’s a really potent argument to make with the base and so we didn’t do enough to inoculate ourselves against those D.C. related issues.”
Some of those issues are so difficult that there's no easy way to get a soundbite that explains those votes.
“These are really, really complicated issues, and I just don’t know that the normals are doing as good a job of messaging that nuance as maybe the extremist influencers,” Johnson said.
In the past, experience with government has been positive, but not this year. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) stepped out of his seat to run for state attorney general, only to lose in the GOP runoff. Rep. Wesley Hunt came in third. Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter (R) is another one who didn't make it through the primary for the state's Senate race. They all left safe Republican seats to seek higher office, only to lose to other Republicans.
Norman and Mace both finished with low numbers in South Carolina's gubernatorial primary. Mace went so far as to pretend she always meant to leave her congressional seat.
On X she posted, “Headed back to the private sector at the end of this term, as the Founders intended. When I ran in 2020 I said I’d only serve 3 terms and my time is up. It’s truly been an immense honor and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.”
Both Norman and Mace were among those who missed important funding votes to stay back and lose the primaries.
One Republican strategist told NOTUS that the common thread is anti-establishment sentiment against GOP candidates. For lawmakers who have been in Congress for years, the demand for "new blood" can be convincing to voters.
“Members of Congress are so easy to paint as these D.C. swamp career politicians, especially on the Republican side because our base already hates that,” the senior Republican strategist told NOTUS.