Source: Politics<\/p>\n
During President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, they were resistance stars. During his second term, they couldn’t survive primaries.<\/p>\n
Alexander Vindman\u2019s Senate primary loss in Florida on Tuesday is the latest stumble for Democrats who rose to prominence during the impeachment trials and accountability protests of Trump\u2019s first term. Vindman, a former National Security Council aide who testified during the 2019 House impeachment inquiry, made standing up to Trump and other forms of corruption a centerpiece of his campaign.<\/p>\n
His national profile helped haul in big money, but that wasn\u2019t enough to stave off an upset loss to democratic socialist Angie Nixon<\/a>, whose win showed the shifting politics of the Democratic base.<\/p>\n \u201cVindman is a hero, but memories fade and the focus of most folks is on the cost of living,\u201d said longtime Democratic strategist David Axelrod. \u201cShe made those issues her focus.\u201d<\/p>\n Democratic voters clearly want fighters who will stand up to the president and the GOP. But the string of losses for resistance candidates from the first Trump term illustrates a new era for the restive Democratic base, where vocal opposition to the president through official channels and public remonstrations no longer guarantees success.<\/p>\n The political graveyard of Trump-resistance-fighter campaigns is growing by the week.<\/p>\n Two of the 2021 House impeachment managers, Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), are among them: DeGette lost her reelection bid to a democratic socialist this summer, while Swalwell dropped out of the California gubernatorial primary after a string of sexual assault allegations<\/a>. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), the lead majority counsel in the first Trump impeachment inquiry, was ousted in his primary. Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police officer honored for his heroics on Jan. 6, 2021, lost a House bid in Maryland \u2014 his second unsuccessful run.<\/p>\n Other Democrats who built their profiles on Trump resistance flopped as well.<\/p>\n Tom Steyer, a prominent financier of the Trump resistance movement, failed to advance in the California gubernatorial primary. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a member of the Oversight and Intelligence committees during the 2021 impeachment, fell short in his Senate bid. Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and Al Green (D-Texas), both of whom led impeachment pushes against Trump, were ousted by younger challengers. And George Conway, a longtime Trump critic and Lincoln Project co-founder, won just six percent of the vote in a House primary in New York City.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018#Resistance\u2019 was a very Trump 1.0 mood, and now we are in a different moment of anger,\u201d said Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at center-left think tank Third Way. \u201cThey’re mad about the war. They’re mad about costs. They’re mad about the establishment not having delivered anything for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Not all the races were defined by Trump accountability politics. Swalwell dropped his bid after multiple sexual assault allegations<\/a>, several incumbents lost to DSA challengers in closed primaries, and in Goldman\u2019s case, the debate over Israel<\/a> was a major factor.<\/p>\n A Democratic operative who worked on one of the resistance races, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the throughline is that those candidates are \u201cinstitutionalists\u201d who argued the justice system was going to hold Trump accountable. But voters have lost faith in those institutions after he returned to office, and were sold by other candidates\u2019 messaging that relied more on railing against those very systems.<\/p>\n \u201cThe prescription isn\u2019t what they were looking for anymore,\u201d the operative said.<\/p>\n If Democrats retake control of the House, they will have to confront their base\u2019s appetite for holding Trump accountable. Republicans have long warned<\/a> that Democrats will immediately move to impeach Trump should they regain a House majority in 2027, which Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) \u2014 the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee \u2014 has signaled openness to<\/a>.<\/p>\n But some Democrats are more careful. “There are certain sections of people that definitely want Democrats to prioritize impeachment of the president. There are also other segments of people that want Democrats to prioritize bringing down the cost of living,” said Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), who lost a runoff in a newly gerrymandered district. “You can’t just focus on one thing at the exclusion of the other.”<\/p>\n These electoral results, along with a growing list of Trump-endorsed candidates who have lost their primaries, suggest Americans are ready to move past Trump, argued Mike Madrid, who co-founded (and later disaffiliated with<\/a>) the anti-Trump GOP group Lincoln Project.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are just tired of him, broadly. They don’t want to deal with him and the fights and the exhaustion and the never-Trump model, but also the sycophantic MAGA support model either,\u201d Madrid said, pointing to the string of Trump-endorsed candidates who lost primaries on Tuesday, from Florida<\/a> to Wyoming<\/a>. \u201cIt’s Trump fatigue.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Some candidates are taking note \u2014 and adjusting accordingly.<\/p>\n David Jolly, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Florida and a former GOP House member, left the Republican Party in 2018 over disagreements with Trump. He was an independent after that and a regular MSNBC talking-head criticizing the president. He registered as a Democrat more than a year ago, before launching his bid for governor.<\/p>\n Despite Trump\u2019s role in his political evolution, Jolly hasn\u2019t made Trump central to his race for governor. \u201cI’m not running the race about Trump. I rarely talk about him. But I am going to tie Byron to Trump’s economy,\u201d Jolly told POLITICO after winning the nomination on Tuesday night, referring to his Trump-endorsed opponent, GOP Rep. Byron Donalds.<\/p>\n Former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), who served on the House Jan. 6th Committee, is running for her old seat against Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.). She said in a statement that she was \u201cproud of the work I did in Congress to hold Donald Trump and his Administration accountable,\u201d but quickly pivoted into an attack focused more on pocketbook issues.<\/p>\n Some of the candidates who lost primaries say their resistance bona fides did help \u2014 just not enough. <\/p>\n Dunn, the Capitol Police officer, earned the Presidential Citizens Medal from former President Joe Biden for his heroism on Jan. 6, 2021 and became well-known for his outspokenness about that day. He said that had little to do with his primary loss \u2014 although he acknowledged that Democratic voters\u2019 top priority this cycle has shifted to affordability concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile name recognition got me to be a formidable challenger, it didn’t put me across the finish line,” said Dunn, who finished third in a crowded primary in Maryland\u2019s 5th District. “I just think it’s too nuanced to just drill it down to \u2018people just don’t care anymore.\u2019\u201d The Democratic nominee, Adrian Boafo, is \u201cstrongly about holding Donald Trump accountable,\u201d Dunn added.<\/p>\n Goldman, similarly, lost to former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who often highlighted how he put his \u201cbody on the line\u201d to push back against the administration\u2019s immigration policies.<\/p>\n Steyer, the billionaire who ran for California governor, lost to Xavier Becerra \u2014 who campaigned hard on<\/a> his court fights with the Trump administration as California\u2019s attorney general, but also leaned into unrelated sections of his resume like his time as Biden\u2019s health secretary.<\/p>\n Months before entering the race, Steyer reminded voters of the Need to Impeach campaign he once funded in an ad supporting last year\u2019s Democratic gerrymander in California<\/a>. But those credentials \u2014 which he later stressed on the campaign trail \u2014 were too dated and too intangible to push him over the top, according to his former campaign spokesperson Kevin Liao.<\/p>\n \u201cTom Steyer led an impeachment movement almost 10 years ago now, and I think it’s hard to expect the electorate to hold that long of a memory on anything that happened almost a decade ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Adam Wren, Kimberly Leonard, Riley Rogerson, Blake Jones and Madison Fernandez contributed reporting.<\/p>\n