While the Republican establishment may be wringing its hands over the rising number of GOP senators retiring after their current terms, there are tens of millions of Americans not concerned.
In fact, to Donald Trump’s 74 million voters, watching the retirements of RINO Republicans is sweet and satisfying.
On Monday, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt announced he won’t seek re-election next year, marking the fifth long-serving Republican to do so. Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of Ohio and Richard Shelby of Alabama have announced over the past couple of months that they would not run again, and Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina noted during his 2016 reelection that he wouldn’t run again in 2022. Also, one other longer-server, 87-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, is considering bowing out.
Now, Grassley and Blunt aren’t necessarily RINOs, but they’ve certainly backed the others who definitely are. So in all, we could see a half-dozen GOP Senate seats open up for Trump-backed candidates to fill, giving the ex-president greater control over the upper chamber and the party as a whole.
Fox News notes:
Mike Biundo, a longtime Republican consultant and veteran of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, told Fox News that the retirements “certainly do” allow the former president to potentially increase his clout over the GOP.
Trump may be gone from the White House, but he still casts a large shadow over the party he reshaped and ruled over during his four years as president. Trump’s influence over congressional Republicans remains formidable as his poll numbers among GOP voters remain astronomical. Trump has vowed to support primary challengers to Republicans up for reelection in 2022 who voted to impeach or convict him or others in the GOP who have crossed him, and he is flirting with a 2024 Republican presidential bid to try and return to the White House.
Another GOP strategist who asked not to be identified told Fox News the retirements “certainly opens the door to a new generation of Republican candidate.”
“Do you get people like Sens. Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton, who adopt the Trump principles but ultimately are seen as credible legislators, or do you end up with people like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a reality TV show candidate?” asked the strategist. “I think that is going to be one of the more interesting developments this cycle.”
For one, Taylor-Greene is as solid a conservative as we’re going to get and frankly, Georgia needs more like her (as does Congress in general). The lies that have been told about her ‘Jewish laser’ and ‘Qanon’ have tainted an otherwise good rep as a deep-red, pro-Trump lawmaker the country needs right now.
Meanwhile, the rush to replace RINOs with pro-Trump conservatives is already on, especially in Ohio, where Trump won by eight points in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Two major GOP candidates are already vying — former state GOP chair Jane Timken and former state treasurer and former Senate candidate Josh Mandel — and both of them have “made their support for Trump centerpieces of their campaigns,” Fox News noted.
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“As your senator, I would advance the Trump agenda without fear or hesitation,” Timken noted as she announced her candidacy.
Mandel asserted that “I’m going to Washington to fight for President Trump’s America First Agenda.”
More and more, the GOP is becoming Trump’s party, not the party of the Washington RINO establishment. That’s good because the Democratic Party is becoming more like Castro and Maduro.
