Republicans are using a secret super PAC to pour $1 Million into Dem primaries

Super PACs with ties to Republicans are spending money to promote weaker, left-wing candidates in Democratic primaries, in an apparent effort to help Republicans retain control of the House, The New York Times reports.

“They’re going into Democratic primaries and literally trying to boost the most extreme candidates and oppose the Blue Dog-endorsed candidates that, if they win, are going to beat the Republicans in the general,” U.S. Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA) said in an interview with the Times. The Blue Dogs are more centrist Democrats.

One “new mystery super PAC with ties to Republicans has spent more than $1 million meddling in at least three Democratic congressional primaries to select preferred opponents,” the Times reports. That group is spending money to promote “a left-wing sex therapist in Texas who has been accused of bigotry and antisemitism by leaders in both parties.”

It is also running ads in Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania and Nebraska.

In some of these races the spending is an effort to disrupt Democratic candidates “who are part of the Democratic Party’s ‘red to blue’ program, a special designation for top recruits in key races that could determine control of the House.”

The Times calls these “interventions in the opposing party’s primaries,” and reports that they are “apparently to elevate Democrats viewed as weaker candidates,” suggesting that “the race for control of the House has entered an intensive new phase in which both parties are vying for every imaginable edge.”

“Some Republicans privately believe the party’s best chance to hold power this year is to cast Democrats as extremists,” the Times reports.

Another super PAC formally aligned with Republicans is promoting a progressive Democrat in California.

Maureen Galindo is running for a Democratic seat from Texas. Party leaders are backing Johnny Garcia, who has worked in the local sheriff’s office. Despite having raised less than $10,000, Galindo finished first in the primary, advancing to a May runoff.

“In a text message,” the Times reports, “Ms. Galindo suggested the money for the mailer had come from ‘a billionaire zionist who made the pac to sabotage candidates,’ using the type of language that has previously prompted charges of antisemitism, including from Senator Jacky Rosen, Democrat of Nevada, and Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who called her ‘openly bigoted.'”

Galindo told the Times, “Dems and Republicans uniting against me in the same week with the same message is evidence that theyre [sic] working together for the zionist billionaires that control our government and tax money.”

There are more races that Democratic strategists expect Republicans to meddle in, including in California, Michigan and Colorado.