What Do the Grassroots Do Now?

In Arizona and Georgia, MAGA state parties face reprisals and irrelevance.

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Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward speaks during a campaign rally on November 7. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Where will the Republican Party go from here? This question—front of mind for sore GOPers in the wake of this month’s disappointing midterms—won’t have a definitive answer until 2024’s presidential nomination contest. But we’ll get some early hints over the next few months at the state level, where some state Republican parties now face questions about whether they tied themselves too tightly to MAGA politics in recent years.

At their core, a state political party’s responsibilities are simple: advancing that party’s principles and supporting that party’s candidates via fundraising and get-out-the-vote coordination. In recent years, however, some state GOP organizations have taken on another role: policing candidates’ loyalty to former President Donald Trump. Take for instance the crucial swing states of Arizona and Georgia.

In Arizona, party chairwoman Kelli Ward—first elected in 2019—oversaw the party apparatus as it became a weapon to fight Trump’s personal battles. The party backed his stolen-election conspiracy theories, with Ward herself leading the bungling effort to empanel a slate of false Arizona Trump electors after the 2020 election. And it led a vengeance campaign against state Republicans seen as insufficiently loyal to Trump, holding censure votes against the likes of Cindy McCain, widow of the late Sen. John McCain, and House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who committed the sin of testifying before the January 6 committee.  

“Please don’t use @azgop and McCain in the same sentence & tag us while I’m chair,” Ward tweeted last year. “I am leading an #AmericaFirst GOP here in our state.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Barry Alexander

    Michigan also, where the GOP has lost the state legislature for the first time in about 20 years, and lost Peter Meijer's Congressional seat by kicking him out and running a Trump candidate. The Dems here now control the legislature, the governorship, all statewide elected offices, and a majority on the state Supreme Court. Six years ago, it was the other way around. Also, we've enshrined abortion in the state constitution. With the Democratic control of the legislature (plus lawsuits in the Dem-controlled courts), it's very easy to imagine a future where abortions are state paid, there are absolutely no least hindrances, and parents aren't entitled to know when their kids get an abortion. Too bad the state GOP was too busy worshipping Trump, I guess.

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    Earl King

    Andrew, you wrote “advancing the party’s principals” as one of responsibilities of a State Party. Sorry but it made me chuckle. I am not aware of any GOP principals at the moment. The Dear Leader opted to run in 2020 with no plank, no principals that I am aware of. Other than finding a way to slow the border crossings is their any unifying principal the GOP holds....and no, owning the libs is NOT a principal.

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      Ben Connelly

      You’re thinking of “principle” not “principal.”

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        Earl King

        I’m glad it was you instead of my English Teacher wife....

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          Ben Connelly

          Haha, hope I could help

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            Earl King

            I think homophones are the toughest. Their, There, They’re.......I often wonder how anyone who wasn’t born here learns English.

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    Jblankenship7276

    Is there anything touched by Trump that hasn't been poisoned or destroyed?

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      Abridge683

      His campaign fund looks pretty good.

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        Bill Nelson

        There are rules on how campaign funds are spent. I suspect Trump hasn’t read them.

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  4. BenP

    The GOP has a very serious problem insofar as a lot of MAGA voters seem to have little interest in the success of a non-MAGA Republican party. Faced with the choice of an "establishment" Republican who wins and a MAGA Republican who loses, they'll take the MAGA Republican. Losing isn't all that bad when your primary motivation is rage. It gives you something to stay angry about. Even better, it gives you something to say self-righteous about.

    There is much of this on the left as well, with the important difference that their extremists haven't tasted the success that the right's extremists got to enjoy after 2016. There are plenty of progressives who believe that the DNC is corrupt and establishment Democrats are no different than Republicans and the reason Democrats lose elections is they haven't sufficiently embraced democratic socialism. These people are delusional too. They think their unpopular ideas are actually very popular, but that nefarious forces are keeping the masses from seeing The Truth. And, they don't wield any real power in the Democratic party. If they did, they'd keep pushing the democratic socialists to victory in primaries, regardless of how many ended up losing their general election. Because moderate Democrats are no better than Republicans.

    In short, both parties have lunatics but only one party's lunatics are running the show right now. And those lunatics would rather lose the noble battle again and again than compromise to win.

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      Ellison

      There is reason to believe that the moderate Democrats are slowing stemming the 'woke' left and with the moderate Republicans at least clearing their throats there are things to be hopeful and thankful for this Thanksgiving.

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  5. Drussell2337

    Switched my registration to Independent this year. Both parties in AZ ran clownish candidates.

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  6. Nordic_man

    Once again this illustrates a serious problem that the article tries to ignore. The GOP needs to win with its base, despite its base. They used to do this by locking the more deplorable parts of their base in the proverbial conservative basement, and then let them out every 4 years with batshit insane promises of ultra conservative policies that would make everything great, and have no trade offs whatsoever. Which is just obviously false. After all everything has trade offs and nothing is perfect.

    They vote for republicans anyways and suddenly those elected reps, facing the true complexity of policy in action, back down entirely, or compromise on most of the red meat culture stuff.

    So then these voters start to grumble that both parties are the same because, well, according to what these voters want they have one party that talks a good game but never delivers, and another party that does the opposite of what they want. Either way they never get what they want.

    Fast forward to where the internet, social media, and small dollar donations weakened the parties, and suddenly the republican base is out of the basement and initiates the hostage crisis we see now.

    And the party’s solution is to try and lock the base back in the basement until this cycle inevitably happens again?

    No. The GOP needs to just abandon the 10ish percent of their base entirely and go compete for the middle much as the left side under Clinton. That is unless you want to repeat this cycle.

    In all honesty the stable American system would have something like 4 parties, two centrist ish parties and two smaller fringe parties that in most multi party systems would be ignored

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    1. MathewA

      " with batshit insane promises of ultra conservative policies that would make everything great"

      some examples please. Prior to Trump I have a hard time thinking of any batshit policies. Balanced budget, secure border, low taxes, less regulation, that seems like pretty middle of the road stuff. Shoot Bill Clinton parroted a lot of it "The era of Big government is over"

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      1. Nordic_man

        When I say batshit insane, I’m not just talking about the policy itself, but how it is sold as all good and no bad. For example repeal and replace Obamacare. You can agree or disagree with Obamacare, but if you try and tell me you can repeal Obamacare without any trade offs just go away lol. The problem isn’t just that the policies are ultra conservative it’s that they falter under the pressure of reality.

        Government spending is another one (hence why the republicans have failed to actually cut spending despite all the ink and words spilled over it). They claim they will cut all the wasteful spending that goes to other people, and then start talking about balanced budgets but never get around to cutting social security or Medicare.

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          Bill Nelson

          No one sells it policy that is 10% bad. Every policy sale is 100% good. The basic policy points are good, what you are looking for are different policies that address different problems.

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          1. Nordic_man

            I mean go look at bernie sanders who openly says tax increases for everyone, or at least almost everyone are going to be needed for Medicare for all. He isn't selling rainbows and unicorns. Compare that to repeal and replace Obamacare. Maybe I am overplaying my hand here a little, but it seems like the GOP has no idea what to do when they finally get to govern in a trifecta. It's all "Oh shit"

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        2. Libertyforallusa2

          They had begun to cut spending under John Boehner. Kevin Williamson even wrote an article about it. But the base didn't care about the reality, only the theater, so Boehner had to go.

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          1. Nordic_man

            What significant spending did they cut exactly? I’m sure they did some easy nonsense along the edges, but what they keep saying needs to happen is broad based painful cuts

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    George.Skinner

    My cynical take on this is that people who go all in on MAGA aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, and it's being reflected in the performance of the Republican party apparatus now that they've taken over.

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  8. RaoD

    Don’t forget Alaska. Used to be a solid Red state. Trump and Palin (not to mention the state GOP) destroyed it. Congressional seat is now Dem and Senate won by anti-Trump candidate.

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    1. Jfan

      I am not familiar with the details of Alaska politics, but I think the problem has nothing to do with Trump. The Alaska Republican Party has a reputation for corruption; Palin made a name for herself and became governor by exposing corruption. This left many Republican officials angry with her, and they never forgave her, bad-mouthing her for the past ten years. When leaders of both parties trash-talk you and no one has an incentive to speak well of you, it takes a toll on your public image. Add to that a few actual problems, such as Palin spending much time outside of Alaska, and her quarrels with the Murkowski family, and she had a large section of the public aligned against her. Additionally, Alaska has not had huge Republican margins for the past twenty years; McCain may have won Alaska only because of Palin, at a time when she was popular.

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      1. Mrzdanis

        The problem was also Alaska's new system of ranked choice voting. It has allowed the R vote to be split among a couple of candidates and the Dem to win. Happened in the special election and was repeated in the general. Peltola received 136K votes while Palin & Begich (the two Republicans) received 176K combined. So 40,000 more people voted for a Republican than a Democrat, but the Democrat gets the seat due to ranked choice. In a traditional head-to-head system with a primary, either Palin or Begich would have run in the general, but not both.

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        1. Jfan

          I agree with Nordic_man. Had Alaska retained party primaries, Palin would have beaten Begich in the Republican primary, and in the general election enough Begich voters would have switched to Peltola to elect her. I know that because that's exactly what they did, giving more of their second-choice votes to Peltola than Palin. This is not a criticism of Palin, just an observation of what happened. The only flaw in this logic is that some of Begich's supporters may not have made a second-choice ranking, and we can speculate that if they voted in a general election, presented with a choice between Palin and Peltola, they would choose Palin.

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          Ellison

          That's not the problem, that's the solution.

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        3. Nordic_man

          So? Those republicans could have ranked a fellow R in second place but chose not to. Peltola didn’t win on the first ballot. She won on the first reallocation.

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  9. Clark.Monson

    I think it's a fairly safe bet to say that Kelli Ward is the worst Republican state-party chair in the country. 2023 can't come soon enough.

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  10. Russell J

    Keep digging up info in Georgia. It is the most amazing state for elections. So clearly a closely contested state but so many candidates try to appeal to the fringe partisans. 10-15 years ago the Republicans dominated but the statewide candidates were much more tame and serious. I grew up in MTG’s district and the Congressmen before her were standard Republicans. One became Governor after I moved. Chance of Governor MTG is 0%.

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