NEW YORK (AP) — In the high-stakes fight for the GOP’s future, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., is calling on Democrats and independents to form an “uneasy alliance” with Republicans to fight former President Donald Trump’s influence.
Kinzinger, one of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics in Congress, has directed his political organization to initiate a novel campaign to convince non-Republicans to support anti-Trump Republican candidates in GOP primary contests across the country later this year. Experts suggest the practice, sometimes known as “party raiding,” will be hard to execute on a broad scale, but Kinzinger warned that failure to shift the GOP’s embrace of Trump could undermine democracy or even a lead to “failed state.”
“People need to wake up to that real possibility,” Kinzinger, who is not seeking reelection this fall, told The Associated Press. “We have to be able to have uneasy alliances, as uneasy as they may be in this moment.”
There are few modern examples of a sitting Republican member of Congress so openly asking Democrats to help take down a former president of his own party.
Kinzinger’s plan underscores the extraordinary challenges Trump antagonists face as they fight to purge Trumpism from the GOP using the existing political system, which offers party leaders little control if voters line up behind extremists. At the same time, Trump allies control the Republican Party infrastructure at the state and national levels — in addition to fundraising.
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Lest there be any doubt, the Republican National Committee is considering a resolution to expel Kinzinger from the GOP during its winter meeting in Utah this week.
“This announcement by him only reinforces why he should be expelled from the Republican Conference,” said Trump ally David Bossie, who sponsored the RNC resolution to expel Kinzinger from the party. “He is actively trying to defeat his colleagues and no longer believes in our shared conservative Republican values.”
Kinzinger, a 43-year-old military pilot who will not seek reelection at the end of the year, addressed his new strategy publicly for the first time in an interview with The AP on Tuesday — almost exactly one year after launching his “Country First” political organization, which aims to purge Trump from the GOP.
Through its first year, the group claims to have recruited more than 100,000 members, including 4,000 volunteers. Country First has also raised more than $2 million, including roughly $250,000 over the last 45 days. But that’s very little compared to Trump, whose political organization has raised more than $100 million since he left office a year ago.
Trump also plans to use his campaign cash to shape primary elections.
He has aggressively called for primary opponents against the 10 House Republicans who joined Democrats in voting to impeach him following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Three of them, including Kinzinger, have decided not to seek reelection, and the others face primary challengers already.
“We’re underdogs,” Kinzinger acknowledged. “But without an underdog coming in and taking on a fight … nothing’s going to change.”
The new focus on Republican primaries represents a strategic shift for Kinzinger’s network, Country First, which spent much of the last year propping up anti-Trump Republican candidates for state and federal office in general elections with varying levels of success.
Country First backed the winner in 8 of 11 state house races across Virginia and New Jersey last November. But Kinzinger’s preferred candidate for a high-profile special congressional election in Texas last May finished in 9th place with just 3% of the vote.
Kinzinger’s new campaign is designed to attack the root of Trumpism where it’s spreading with little resistance: in the Republican nomination process. Because the vast majority of Republican-held congressional seats are not competitive due to gerrymandering and cultural trends, the congressman argues that Trump-backed “extremists” can only be stopped in the Republican primaries that decide which candidate appear on the general election ballot.
But because Republican primary elections are often decided by the most passionate partisans — in this case, Trump supporters — Kinzinger hopes to change the composition of the Republican primary electorate to include more moderate voters and Democrats.
His group this week posted detailed instructions on its website instructing Democrats and unaffiliated voters about how to participate in upcoming Republican primary elections. Nearly two dozen states have what’s described as “open” primaries that allow voters affiliated with either party to participate, but even in states that close their primary contests to non-Republicans, Kinzinger says there’s time for voters to change their political affiliation — at least temporarily — to the GOP.
Country First has yet to determine which races to focus on or exactly how to reach the voters it needs to transform Republican primaries, according to co-founder Austin Weatherford, who serves as Kinzinger’s chief of staff. In many districts, there are no viable alternatives to the Trump-aligned candidates.
Weatherford said a team of law students and other volunteers are currently going through the political map to determine which races would be top targets.
While most primary elections are months away, Texas’s upcoming primary elections on March 1 offer an early test. Kinzinger’s team is eyeing the primary in the race to replace Rep. Louie Gohmert, a vocal Trump supporter who is running for state attorney general.
History does not bode well for Kinzinger.
Caitlin Jewitt, a political science professor at Virginia Tech, noted that similar calls for strategic voting in the 2008 and 2020 presidential elections had little impact.
In those cases, it was Republicans called for their voters to interfere in Democratic primaries. In 2020, for example, Trump encouraged his supporters to vote for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, thinking Sanders would have been an easier general election opponent.
“I don’t think it’ll work on a broad scale,” Jewitt said.
Prof. Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, has asked voters in recent elections about their willingness to vote in the other party’s primary.
“Our survey data just didn’t show any significant degree of that kind of crossover voting for a strategic purpose,” he said. “It would be very unprecedented.”
Franklin noted that Kinzinger’s strategy would also likely be “quite controversial.”
“It’s perfectly legal to cross over and vote in another party’s primary in many states,” he said. “But to the extent we still have norms, one party interfering in the other party’s primary is outside the norm.”
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“Lest there be any doubt, the Republican National Committee is considering a resolution to expel Kinzinger from the GOP during its winter meeting in Utah this week.” Damn good riddance—this guy is hampered by too many personal issues with Trump and an inability to think rationally and clearly. There is more than enough division in the country without his assistance. He is looking for stardom—not what is best for the country.
“We’re underdogs,” Kinzinger acknowledged. Actually, jackasses would be more accurate.
If Kinzinger had ears to hear and eyes to see that we are ALREADY well on our way to a failed state because of guys like he who love their hate of Trump and their own Trump damaged egos than they love their nation and would gladly give us more mind depleted Democrats like Joe Biden and Bernie if it could give them the tingle down their leg that socialist Obama and Biden give to him. For him it is better an unholy alliance that turns America into a hell where fools like Kinzinger can rule than a successful powerful America first heavenly nation on the move where THE PEOPLE look upward for guidance than downward to their imagined sexual orientation or skin colors that have recently proven to be their highest obsessions. The definition of a Zinger is “ a striking or amusing remark” ,,,it’s also a snack cake with mush in the middle. You chose which this Zinger is kin to, but I prefer the latter. There are already way too many RINO unholy alliances that have born the forbidden fruit of these Democrat devils.
Pity we can’t drop these cretins, into shark infested waters! After chumming it up!
He’s also hampered by a lack of character and a huge ego. I don’t think he will find many followers even among Democrats. He’s a useful tool for Nancy Pelosi on the loaded Jan. 6 committee but that will come to an end and he will likely find he doesn’t have a friend anywhere. May the same thing happen to Lynn Cheney.
He already tried to float a campaign in IL for governor and briefly thought he could become president. Even a jackass doesn’t have a big enough Hee Haw for that.
This hateful RINO Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., is consumed with the (TDS) Trump Derangement Syndrome is a mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their unjustified hatred of Donald Trump, to the point they will abandon all logic and reason.
Symptoms for this condition can be very diverse, ranging from racist or hate filled outbursts to a complete disconnection from reality.
The Treasonous, Dishonest, disgraceful, Socialist Democrat Party and their RINOs game plan is to lie, cheat and steal in order to take total control of the American people,
increase Taxes on everything and bring American commerce and economy to its knees and to promote Socialism.
Then access power and retain it by any means available –
no matter the costs to the people, the government or the nation.
The traitorous, dishonest, destructive, socialist Democrat Party revolves around and its philosophy is based on Total Control, Hate, Lies, Cons, Deceptions, Immorality and the lack of Integrity, Ethics or Honor.
Socialist Democrats are willing to destroy themselves and everyone around them before they will agree to compromise their failed policies and their destructive self-fabricated lies and beliefs. 🙁 🙁 🙁
TDS fully and totally rotted any soul he MAY have had… AND HIS BRAIN!
These fools have every move of satan down pat.
He fails to recognize that it was the ordinary Republican voter who made Donald Trump the nominee, the elite, the sobs of the party who gave us less than than stellar candidates lost out. Now it’s time for them be be gone also, they no longer are representative of the people but of the entrenched coterie of out of touch politicians.
The Democrat party is the party of the egotistic Self-serving. Kinzinger belongs with his own, not the GOP.
Schmuchs like him, CARE NOT WHAT WE the people think.. TO THEM WE aRE peons, who should just OBEY WHAT our ‘masters’ tell us to do (masters being the politicians).
” In the high-stakes fight for the GOP’s future, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., is calling on Democrats and independents to form an “uneasy alliance” with Republicans to fight former President Donald Trump’s influence”. “but Kinzinger warned that failure to shift the GOP’s embrace of Trump could undermine democracy or even a lead to “failed state.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, you are among the worst of the RINOS, as you are in collusion with the communist Democrats. Because you, Adam, are a traitor to our Country, as are your buddies the Vladimir Lenin Democrats, you (Adam) want a “failed state”, as you want the collapse of our Country, you traitor!!!!
RINO PUTZ!
His plane is going down in flames from being hit by a Trump anti-aircraft missile. Now he’s attempting to eject before he crashes; most likely his parachute fails or he gets shot from small arms fire. He’s a total loser!
Pity that’s only a proverbial comment. AND NOT LITERALLY happening!
Such a little person with such a tiny mind which makes it quite obvious he isn’t the man he wishes he were and therefore thinks he can ruin real men. madam kitz you will need to try harder then that to destroy Americas choice for representation.
I suggest we start a campaign for national support for whoever runs against this rino ***-clown in the primary. We need to eliminate these cancers from the GOP !!! Run a real conservative Republican against him who will commit to a Greater America and not the ****-show we have now !!!!
this boy is a brain dead, booger eating moron!!! And he AIN’t no republican!!!!!
HE ain’t no CONSERVATIVE… That’s for sure.
he AINT no American either! Dump his sorry butt in the Atlantic Ocean.
There are few modern examples of a sitting Republican member of Congress so openly asking Democrats to help take down a former president of his own party.
In other words he is a traitor.
He looks like a close cousin to Jeff Flake. Birds of a feather “flake” together.
Its been so long since i heard of Jeff, i completely forgot about that butthead…
…and I thought John McCain was a disaster. Looks like this ) 3 r k took lessons from the little eye poker and put ’em on steroids.
What a loser.
Looks like Mccain has THREE successors to his ”ultimate rino” position.. Flake, Kinzinger and Romney!
There’s a fourth…though I didn’t know LIZards could live in WY.
Kinzinger should be known as “the SUPER Flake”. The AZ Flake came from Snowflake AZ.