Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Republicans have been feuding for months in Nevada\u2019s largest county after a pro-Donald Trump insurgency with ties to far-right activists threw the party into chaos.<\/p>\n
Now the turmoil is spreading across the battleground state, consuming the GOP in a bonfire of lawsuits, counterclaims and resignations.<\/p>\n
The meltdown \u2014 the latest iteration of the hostilities that have wracked the party nationally in the post-Trump era \u2014 could prove especially damaging if the fissures linger into next year. Trump lost to Joe Biden in Nevada by just more than 2 percentage points, and Republicans have a chance of knocking off Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Gov. Steve Sisolak in 2022. National GOP groups are pouring money into those races \u2014 but the dysfunction within the state\u2019s Republican Party is threatening to undermine those efforts.<\/p>\n
In recent days, Republicans tied to a pre-existing leadership group in Las Vegas\u2019 Clark County filed a lawsuit seeking to bar the state party from electing officers at its fall meeting on Saturday in Northern Nevada. On Thursday, a judge in Nevada denied their request, dismissing the case.<\/p>\n
And that same day, the state party chair, Michael McDonald, pledged in an interview to counter-sue.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, several GOP officials in Washoe County \u2014 the state\u2019s second-most populous county and a traditional bellwether \u2014 resigned from their posts earlier this week amid an uprising from pro-Trump activists within their ranks. In Carson City, former state Controller Ron Knecht resigned from his leadership position in his local Republican club and from the state party\u2019s central committee, which he torched as \u201cdysfunctional\u201d on his way out.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God,\u201d said Amy Tarkanian, a former chair of the state Republican Party. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really embarrassing, just as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the GOP\u2019s shrinking band of traditionalists, the warring has laid bare the limited options remaining for them in a party that is still fiercely loyal to Trump and his baseless claims that the 2020 election was rigged. Nearly a year after the November election, the party continues to reckon with the volatile forces set loose by the former president.<\/p>\n
In Washoe County, some old-guard Republicans have simply left the GOP organization and formed a PAC<\/a> to help elect Republican lawmakers, working outside of the party.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to focus on the very practical, important, productive business of taking back the legislature,\u201d Knecht said.<\/p>\n At a minimum, the saga in Nevada has served as a public relations fiasco for the state GOP, with embarrassing coverage<\/a> by the state\u2019s largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and other influential outlets<\/a>. The effort to oust the original leaders of the Clark County party involved activists with ties to the Proud Boys<\/a>, a militant, far-right group, which drew national attention.<\/p>\n Two parties are claiming to represent the GOP in Clark County \u2014 one controlling the local party\u2019s website<\/a>, the other recognized by the state party. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m tired of seeing the BS,\u201d said Michael Jack, a former vice chair of the Washoe County GOP who is now seeking to unseat McDonald as state party chair. \u201cWe could do so much in this state. This is a center-right state. There is no reason the Democrats should have dominated the legislature the last three cycles \u2026 It\u2019s ridiculous, and it\u2019s because the focus of the state party has always gone to where the money is, and that\u2019s the top of the ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n Tarkanian said that with Republicans competing for ownership of local parties and forming rival groups in the state, mail, field and other campaign operations next year may all be duplicated.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll be wasted time, wasted money, instead of working together as one strong unit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The intraparty friction is not unique to Nevada Republicans. Earlier this year, Democrats in Washoe County, aided by national Democratic leaders, wrested control of the state\u2019s midterm campaign operation away from the state party after a slate of Bernie Sanders allies endorsed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America won control of it.<\/p>\n Still, the Nevada GOP\u2019s civil war has been especially bitter and long-lasting.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a simple \u2014 I don\u2019t want to call it a power grab \u2014 but it\u2019s a maintenance of power [by state party leaders],\u201d said Stephen Silberkraus, a former Nevada Republican assemblyman and political director of the Clark County group that\u2019s trying to block the election of state party officers on Saturday. \u201cIt really is a house divided.\u201d<\/p>\n Silberkraus is among a group of Republicans facing expulsion from the state central committee this weekend. He said of the current state party leadership, \u201cThey just go for the throat and do what they want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n The animosity between Silberkraus\u2019 Clark County faction and the state party chair erupted earlier this year, after the Republican Party\u2019s state central committee voted to censure Nevada\u2019s Republican secretary of state, Barbara Cegavske, for \u201cfailing to investigate<\/a>\u201d Trump\u2019s baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud. Clark County Republicans accused McDonald, a Trump ally, of improperly influencing the vote by adding extremist members to the county\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n McDonald said he did nothing improper, casting the dispute as one between grassroots Republicans and two county parties \u2014 in Clark and Washoe \u2014 where entrenched leaders wanted to \u201ckeep it like a country club.\u201d McDonald said Jesse Law, the former Trump campaign staffer who is now recognized by the state party as the Clark County chair, has swelled attendance at membership meetings, and he promised to counter-sue the pre-existing Republican group for its \u201cfrivolous lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n McDonald also maintained the party will not suffer next year for the current upheaval. The Clark and Washoe county leadership, he said, were \u201canchors\u201d on the party that are \u201cnow pulled up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis young group is coming in, these people who have never been involved before, and they\u2019re looking at the policies that President Trump had, and that\u2019s what\u2019s driving them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n