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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Democrats are facing backlash Wednesday — including from within their own ranks — after they jumped into the GOP primary in western Michigan, helping a far-right candidate who has embraced false claims about the 2020 election unseat a Republican who voted for impeachment Donald Trump.
Democrats have tried to meddle in multiple GOP primaries this year, using ads that appear to be attacks on more extreme candidates as a way to subtly promote those contenders. The idea is to line up opponents that Democrats see as easier to beat in the general election.
But Tuesday’s vote was the first in which the closeness of the outcome — Trump-backed challenger John Gibbs won with 52 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results — suggesting that Democratic interference may have influenced the results.
Democrats will now see if their high-stakes gambit to unseat Rep. Peter Meijer will win them the seat in November. No matter what happens, critics say that trying to boost Gibbs is reckless and undermines the Democrats’ argument that they are the party that upholds democracy.
“It’s cynical and dangerous,” said Richard Hassen, a UCLA law professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project. “We know that the Trump wing of the Republican Party is doing much to undermine people’s confidence in the fairness and integrity of elections. The idea that Democrats would be willing to gamble on electing more of these people because they think they will be easier to beat in the general election is really playing with fire.
Some of the criticism comes from within the party.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who has made defending democracy a hallmark of her job, called out the decision by some in her party to support Gibbs.
“If we’re going to say as a party — or as leaders — that we believe in a healthy democracy that requires citizens to be informed and engaged, we have to live those values in everything we do,” Benson said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Meddling in another country’s primary election does not reflect those values.”
She called it “a dangerous game for everyone, as part of some strategy to support election deniers.”
“I think this type of playing other countries is a very risky proposition,” Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) told The Post on Wednesday. “It’s a dangerous proposition for a campaign committee, instead of pushing Democrats, to try to push a Republican in the primary. Because they might actually win in the end, and you’re going to have someone who’s even more extreme.”
Second-guessing by Democrats was piling up before the first day.
“I am disgusted that hard-earned money intended to support Democrats is being used to promote Trump-endorsed candidates, especially the far-right opponent of one of the most respected Republicans in Congress,” Congressman Dean Phillips (D-Minn. ), posted on Twitter last week when the ad debuted.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $435,000 on its ad, which shows a series of images of Gibbs with Trump and calls him “too conservative for West Michigan.” These apparent criticisms may have come across as a compliment to many Republican primary voters.
Look at the ads Democrats are funding to support far-right Republicans
Meyer, who is in his first term, earned the ire of Trump and many of his supporters by becoming one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach him after the Capitol riot.
“The Democrats got the match they wanted, and in the process they threw overboard one of the few members of the House Republican Conference who were willing to stand up for principle and stand up for the Constitution.” It’s reprehensible,” said Kevin Seifert, an adviser to Meyer’s campaign.
Hours before conceding the race Tuesday night, Meijer told reporters it was too early to tell what effect the ad had. He called the effort a troubling move by a party that has repeatedly warned that Trump and his allies are trying to undermine democracy.
“I know a lot of people — my Democratic colleagues in Washington — were outraged just by the cynicism and hypocrisy that this represented,” he said at a downtown Grand Rapids bar where his supporters had gathered.
In an essay he posted online Monday, Meyer accused Democrats of not only helping Gibbs but “subsidizing his entire campaign” because their advertising cost them more than the Gibbs campaign spent on the race, a figure that documents for campaign finance records show it to be $334,000. Meyer noted that he has been censured by GOP heads in his district and called a traitor by some of his one-time allies.
“Watching this unravel in my party has been extremely confusing,” Meijer wrote. “The only thing more disgusting was the ability of my Democratic colleagues to sell any pretense of principle to political expediency — simultaneously decrying the downfall of democracy while rationalizing the use of their hard-earned dollars to support the supposed object of their fears.”
Hassen, the UCLA law professor, echoed that sentiment.
“Democracy cannot be sustained only by one party believing in it and helping to purge the other party of pro-democracy members,” he said.
As voters went to the polls Tuesday, Gibbs downplayed the role of advertising, saying the work of his supporters gave him momentum. He rejected the Democratic premise that they could more easily defeat him than Meyer in a district that leans slightly Democratic.
“First of all, Meyer has lost so much Republican support that he’s never going to win this general election in November,” Gibbs told reporters outside a community center in the Grand Rapids suburb of Byron Center after voting. “Many Republicans will stay home or miss his choice on the ballot because of the way he betrayed Republican voters. So he is completely unelectable in general.”
In November, Gibbs will face Democrat Hillary Scholten, who was unopposed in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Scholten lost to Meyer by six points in 2020, but the district has since been redrawn in favor of Democrats.
Scholten issued a statement Wednesday saying “the ad from the DCCC is exactly the kind of thing that makes me fed up with Washington and ready to fight for the people of West Michigan.”
Terry Eater, a sterilization technician at a dental office, voted for Gibbs on Tuesday at a fire station in Alpine Township, north of Grand Rapids. She said she’s worried about the vote to impeach Meijer because she doesn’t think anyone did anything wrong on Jan. 6
As for Gibbs, she said she has received a letter criticizing him for his support for Trump, but considers that trait an asset. “I know they think he’s too conservative,” Eater, 59, said of Gibbs.
Other voters said Trump’s support had backfired.
“I’m not a Trump fan,” said Jessica Morgan, a 38-year-old stay-at-home mom who considers herself a libertarian.
Gibbs “was a very strong supporter and a very strong believer that everything is corrupt and we should hate our government the way it is,” Morgan said. “And I like to have more faith than that, so Peter Meijer was the safer bet.”
Chris Trevino, who voted in the Democratic primary, said he disagreed with Meyer on many issues but respected his vote to impeach Trump. He hoped to see Meyer defeat Gibbs and said he thinks Democrats should have focused on their own races instead of helping a candidate they see as poised to usurp democracy.
“I personally don’t want anyone who’s endorsed by Trump just because I don’t believe all this campaign lies,” said Trevino, 29, who works in cybersecurity. “So anyone who has anything to do with the election denial, I just want you to kick them out.”
Tom Hamburger in Washington contributed to this report.
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