By Matt Rooney
Can we consider the argument settled? I sure hope so!
President Donald Trump and the America First movement won a crushing victory on Tuesday night in Indiana, Save Jerseyans, as all but one anti-redistricting RINO incumbent in that state’s senate went down in flames to Trump-endorsed primary challengers. Most are on track to lose by double-digit margins.
“While the night is still young, I want to take the opportunity to clarify one matter regarding the President’s political team and our support for Indiana redistricting: No, we were not bluffing,” Trump numbers guru and New Jersey native Tim Saler wrote on X as the returns were tabulated.
The message from the party’s base is as clear as crystal to anyone who isn’t blind (wilfully or otherwise): the Republican Party needs to fight, and we’re not going back to a GOP that rolls over. Specials and midterms come and go, but the change President Trump has brought about in the GOP coalition isn’t ephemeral.
Will Republicans in other states get the hint? Including right here in the Garden State?
I wonder.
While Assembly Republicans are starting to show tangible signs of fight (I write about them often), our own State Senate Republican caucus voted unanimously for the confirmation of Mikie Sherrill’s radical Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, another TDS crusader with a law degree who’s shaping up to be Matt Platkin in a pantsuit. More than a few establishment Republicans – especially in the affluent suburban areas of North Jersey – aren’t trying to conceal the extent to which they’re pining for a resurgence of country club Republicanism in the months and years to come. They WANT Republicans to get stomped in November to hasten a return to the pre-Golden Escalator Era.
“There is only one path..a return to our traditional values and reject hateful rhetoric,” State Senator Jon Bramnick of Union County whined in his latest anti-Trump X post shortly before Indiana’s rout of anti-Trump politicians came into view.
What hateful rhetoric is Jon referencing? He never says with any specificity in any of his tweets. Curious, right?
And what are our “traditional values,” exactly? Rubber-stamping Democrat attorney general nominees…?
But it’s all moot whether he likes it or not.
The argument is over as far as Republican voters are concerned. They wanted Indiana Republicans to fight back against Democrat gerrymandering, vote-rigging, ballot harvesting, and anti-voter ID hijinks by redrawing the state’s map. They wanted to keep socialists and wackos away from Washington. They wanted someone – and this part is key! – to stand up for them. The incumbents didn’t, so now they’re almost all gone. Not complicated!
Next up: the entire New Jersey legislature is on the ballot in 2027, which means each and every GOP State Senate incumbent seeking reelection is going on a *line-less* primary ballot next June. Some of them may even need to account for a decided dearth of the kind of “fight” Republicans now demand in their elected representatives.
If I needed to face the GOP electorate next spring? I’d start acting like it.
