Primary Interference

A new electoral strategy has shown promising results for Democrats, but is the allure of victory worth the catastrophic consequences of losing -- and the ethical questions that emerge regardless?

In our era of politics, a single election can have a disproportionate impact: congressional majorities are won by a handful of seats, legislative agendas can hinge on a single Senate seat, and the fate of democracy may rest on who wins the presidency. In short, the value of victory has never been higher – and along with it, the lengths each party is willing to go to win. 

This drive for victory, more intense than ever before, places outsized value on a candidate’s spoken word, and a campaign’s every dollar. All is in service of victory. 

Driven by these pressures, campaigns have looked beyond by-the-book electoral strategies such as advertisements, in-person campaign events like speeches, or even digital forms of outreach in order to turn out possible voters.

Instead, new higher-risk, higher-reward strategies have emerged, including one focused on reshaping the general election matchup itself: interfering with the opposing party’s primary to ensure a weaker opponent is nominated.

The question is: do the potential rewards of this novel strategy outweigh the catastrophic consequences of its failure?

Primary Interference: How It Works

Not all candidates are created equal: ideological extremism, zealous rhetoric, and background issues like political inexperience and scandals can all negatively affect how voters perceive a candidate.

In many cases, facing the weakest possible opponent can present a more powerful advantage than outspending and out-campaigning a stronger opponent.  Increasing numbers of political campaigns are capitalizing on this, investing serious resources in influencing the opposite party’s primary and helping platform candidates they believe they can defeat. 

Here’s how this works: campaigns will air big-dollar advertisements, and repeatedly single out an anointed opposing candidate in speeches, in order to boost their name recognition and highlight their policies among primary voters.

Knowing that advertisements will be seen by voters of all stripes and affiliations, campaigns don’t actually praise a candidate on the other side of the aisle; they do so implicitly, framing their praises as denigrations, but in the process, raising that candidate’s visibility.

Here’s a great example: in the 2012 Senate election in Missouri, incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill spent millions of dollars funding ads which offered thinly-veiled support to Republican House member Todd Akin, whose campaign hadn’t attracted significant funding prior to this. The McCaskill campaign likely targeted Akin due to his far-right profile as a House member and his propensity for controversial statements. McCaskill labeled Akin “the most conservative congressman in Missouri” and a “crusader against bigger government.”¹

McCaskill effectively boosted Akin’s support among the state’s Republican voters and catapulted his campaign from a distant third to front-runner in the state’s primary - which Akin would go on to win.

In the general election, McCaskill’s strategy paid off: Akin went on to attract widespread criticism for stating that "legitimate rape” could not cause pregnancies among a host of other mishaps.

Come November, while Missouri voted R+9 at the presidential level, McCaskill won re-election by 15.7% - a stunning overperformance, and a resounding affirmation of this strategy’s viability.

There are two reasons this strategy works.

One: most fringe, ideologically-extreme primary candidates tend to be political newcomers rather than experienced politicians, running underfunded and low-visibility campaigns. In primaries, where the best-known and best-funded candidate usually wins, even a small investment can transform a campaign from unserious to seriously competitive. Therefore, from a value-per-dollar perspective, campaigns have realized money may be better spent boosting a weak opponent rather than aiding one’s own campaign.

Secondly, the rise of political tribalism has created primary electorates that veer closer to the ends of the spectrum than the center. As a result, primary voters are increasingly likely to base their support on which candidate is the most extreme. But in the longer term - this disadvantages them in the general election, where candidates often must appeal to voters on all sides of the electorate.

Primary Interference: The Best-Case Scenario

At its best, primary interference can yield incredible benefits for a campaign - especially in competitive states.

In 2022, Democrats across the nation benefitted from primary interference — but most notably in swing states.

Take Pennsylvania’s 2022 gubernatorial election, for instance:

Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, long positioned as a successor to incumbent Governor Tom Wolf, sought to bolster his chances at victory in Pennsylvania, a highly-competitive swing state. The Republican primary, which was hotly contested between former House Rep. Lou Barletta and state senator Doug Mastriano — a far-right Christian nationalist who had attended the January 6th rally — seemed like an opportunity in waiting.

Shapiro’s campaign poured millions into television advertisements, lambasting Mastriano’s far-right positions on all issues from abortion to democracy and tying the Republican’s potential victory to a win “for what Trump stands for.”² Of course, these attacks held a double meaning: for every viewer appalled by , a conservative viewer read these same denunciations as endorsements, and these same deterrents to vote as encouragements.

It seemed a risky bet: Pennsylvania, which had reliably supported Democrats through the late 20th and early 21st centuries, is now one of the most politically-divided states in the nation. In 2016, the Keystone State was won by Republican Donald Trump, and in 2020 the state backed Joe Biden by a narrow 1.2% margin of victory — around 80,000 votes out of a total 7 million cast.

But Shapiro’s strategy showed sparks of brilliance. Pennsylvania, while possessing a large rural, blue-collar population which celebrated Trumpism, also contains equally large suburbs and urban centers whose residents detest far-rightism with fervor. And in a midterm election, where voter enthusiasm is typically limited to more civically-engaged voters, the balance shifted heavily in favor of the more highly-educated suburban- and urbanites.

In the end, Shapiro won by 14.8%, turning a potential nail-biter into a blowout. His victory had immediate and far-ranging impacts: not only did Shapiro keep an important governorship in Democratic hands, but by taking the race off the competitive board, he allowed the party to streamline valuable resources into more competitive races — possibly making up the difference between defeat and victory: for example, Wisconsin’s concurrent gubernatorial election, where Democrats only narrowly came out on top.

It was a similar story in numerous other states that year, including Arizona, a fast-growing, heavily urbanized state in the Sun Belt. Democratic candidates for governor and attorney general won by thin (in the latter race, extremely thin) margins against their far-right, election-denying Republican opponents. These victories handed Democrats nearly half of Arizona's state row offices after a decade of Republican dominance.

Primary interference’s consistently resounding success across different regions and different national environments suggests that Democrats have no plans of abandoning the strategy.

Why Primary Interference Could Be Here To Stay

You might be thinking that this strategy isn’t going to be around much longer.

With the American electorate’s increasing acceptance of extremism and extremist candidates and the prominent weight of Trump’s endorsements in Republican primaries across the nation, skeptical readers might be asking: won’t Trump-endorsed candidates win their primaries, without Democratic boosts?

It’s an important question — after all, the utility of primary interference rests on its necessity.

With Donald Trump willing and able to manipulate Republican primaries at the flick of his wrist — or the tap of his finger on Twitter — has primary interference become a strategy of the past?

The answer is no, for two reasons.

Number one: Trump’s endorsed candidates don’t always win their primaries. And because of this, Democrats can still boost them.

To illustrate how Trump’s endorsement holds considerable but not unlimited sway, we can look to 2022. In that year, Trump endorsed numerous fringe candidates facing Republican incumbents who he had deemed disloyal to him; although some endorsees won notable victories in their primaries, numerous campaigns ended in failure.

Take Georgia, a state in the Deep South whose Republican coalition is extremely conservative. The Peach State rejected Trump-endorsed candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor in their respective primaries by landslide margins: in the Governor’s race, Trump-endorsed former Senator David Purdue lost to incumbent Governor Brian Kemp in a 73-21 point wallop.

Bottom line: Trump’s endorsement, while still the most powerful of any living politician, is not limitless. It’s influence over the Republican electorate has declined in tandem with Trump’s own grip. Between his 2020 loss and his 2024 rebound, Trump has seen his grip on the Republican Party falter. And regardless of whether Trump wins or loses on November 5th, this trend will likely continue: it’s difficult to see how Trump can maintain his same level of influence in 20, or even 10 years. Barring extremely unlikely circumstances, Trump will be permanently out of elected office by 2030: either he wins this election and will be forced to leave office by 2029, or he loses and is likely unable to win the Republican nomination again, having lost not once, but twice.

Trump’s endorsement losing its swaying power (and thus, a decline in Trump-like figures winning nomination) may seem detrimental to Democrats’ electoral prospects — but it also leaves an opening for them to continue their meddling.

Reason number two for why primary interference is not obsolete: Trump doesn’t always endorse the most extreme candidate in the race. In this case, Democrats can prop up the more extreme candidate.

To illustrate how Trump doesn’t always endorse the most extreme candidate: In the 2022 Senate elections in Alabama and Missouri, Trump endorsed more conventional Republican Senate candidates Katie Britt and Eric Schmidt against their far-right alternatives. And in this year’s elections, Trump seems to have learnt from his previous mistakes, seemingly approaching his endorsements more strategically and taking into account electoral viability in 2024 where he largely dismissed it two years earlier.

And this year, Trump is choosing his endorsements even more tactfully. in Montana’s 2024 Senate race, Trump endorsed veteran and businessman Tim Sheehy over MT-02 Representative Matt Rosendale, one of the most far-right members of the House and a staunch Trump ally. In West Virginia’s Senate race, Trump supported Governor Jim Justice over WV-02 Representative Alex Mooney despite Mooney being far more conservative than Justice on issues such as government spending, Medicare expansion, and LGBTQ+ rights. In Maryland, Trump even endorsed former Governor Larry Hogan — a moderate Republican who had called for Trump’s removal from office in the wake of the January 6th insurrection.

Trump has (ever so slightly) developed strategic insight since 2022, as he and his party seem more in step in terms of their objectives: both want to see Republicans win a trifecta.

Where Trump’s main desire in 2022 was to retain his grip on the Republican Party despite being out of office, in 2024 — now that he is the party’s standard bearer once again — he seems to acknowledge the importance of victory for his party (and for his presidency).

To summarize: Trump’s endorsements are neither all-powerful nor all-impulsive, leaving the door open for outside influence.

In my opinion, primary meddling will remain an effective strategy — but although its benefits are immense, they are not infinite.

Limits and Disadvantages of Primary Interference

Like all strategies, primary interference has its trade-offs and limitations. 

Starting off with the most obvious: some primaries aren’t so easily manipulated. Even with outside support, a candidate may still lose their primary.

Since many extremists have little experience running for office, they enter the field underfunded and virtually unknown. In a field of candidates which likely includes more experienced candidates running more serious campaigns, gaining electoral momentum is an often-insurmountable challenge — even with the implicit aid of the opposing party.

Because of this, primary meddling poses the risk of wasted money.

Take Nevada and Colorado, for instance. In 2022, Democrat-affiliated groups poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican gubernatorial and senatorial primaries, respectively. In both races, the mainstream Republican won their primary, rendering Democratic efforts (and investments) useless.

Second: even if an extremist candidate does manage to advance to the general election, there is no guarantee that they will lose.

In our hyper—polarized environment, where more and more voters seem to vote for political parties rather than individual candidates, the personal has taken on far less importance compared to the partisan. Even an abhorrent candidate may be a favorite to win if the partisan composition of the electorate favors their party.

A state’s baseline partisanship is by far the best indicator of an electoral outcome, and in states where Republicans or Democrats are supported by a clear majority of voters, it’s often a metric that is difficult to overcome. There is no objective definition for this benchmark, but, it’s safe to assume that states which regularly support one party by 10 points or more are likely to do in any given election — regardless of candidate quality.

On top of that, increasing amounts of voters have migrated from the center of the ideological spectrum to its far ends. Simply put, extremist candidates are not rejected with the same consistency and force as they would have been only a decade ago.

The most obvious example of these changing dynamics is Trump’s groundbreaking success. In 2016, Trump won the electoral college and nearly won a majority of the popular vote, owing to his popularity among blue-collar Americans and his surprising retention of support from suburban voters.

With the American public becoming increasingly comfortable with extremism, primary meddling poses an inherent risk: setting up an extremist for failure only for them to emerge victorious.

This is the disaster scenario: not only losing the election, but helping elevate another extremist to political relevance — whether in a county municipal office, a state legislature, or even the halls of Congress.

To see this reality very nearly play out, look to Missouri.

Missouri’s 2022 Senate Election: A Close Brush With Disaster

Some quick background on Missouri: the Show-Me state, while once extremely competitive and even considered a presidential bellwether (meaning predictor), is now considered a Republican stronghold. In 2016 Donald Trump won the state by over 20 points, and four years later he held the state by a 16-point margin. 

Fast forward to 2022: Democrats were defending a barebones majority in the Senate and sought potential pick-up opportunities wherever they might have lied.

Some even looked at Missouri, and as nonsensical as this may sound, there was some validity to their hope.

Running for Senate, and current frontrunner in the Republican primary, was former Governor Eric Greitens. And to say Greitens was a poor candidate would be an understatement.

Eric Greitens stood out as an abhorrent candidate even among the flood of second-rate Republican candidates who won nomination in concurrent Senate races in other states.

Greitens had committed the same cardinal sins which had doomed fellow candidates Doug Mastriano and Kari Lake: he was a die-hard Trump supporter and made numerous far-right statements, including one supporting the far-right Great Replacement theory. 

During his first year as governor, Greitens was accused of having an extramarital affair, sexual and physical assault, and illegally using a veteran’s charity email list for his political campaign; he was indicted on the latter charge, as well as invasion of privacy. 

On June 1st, 2018 – only 508 days after the start of his gubernatorial tenure – Greitens resigned after facing an impeachment effort supported by north of three-quarters of members in both houses of the state legislature. 

Four years later, Greitens returned to politics by entering his name in the 2022 Senate election. 

And unsurprisingly, his entry fueled Democrats’ hopes in a state where they had long been deprived of any political power (aside from the governorship, where Democratic Jay Nixon served up until 2017). Many Democrats reasoned that even Missouri, a Trump +16 state, would refuse to back a man who likely committed sexual and physical assault.

When pitted against two of the leading Democratic candidates in the race — Lucas Kunce and Trudy Busch Valentine — Greitens prevailed in every poll except one (where he tied), but only by single-digit margins – a non-significant ‘feat’ in a state which regularly supported Republicans by over 15 points, and certainly indicative of a competitive race.

But Republicans seemed to recognize this reality, too, and were quick to put an end to Democratic hopes. Greitens’ standing in the polls fell, and he routinely placed behind other Republicans like Rep. Vicky Hartzler and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt.

Ultimately, Greitens finished a distant third in the Republican primary while Schmitt came out on top — as he would again in November.

Perhaps wistful Democrats had looked back to 2012 — the aforementioned Senate election in Missouri where Claire McCaskill’s bet payed off — as a source of optimism.

Unfortunately, 2012 was a different era – especially for Missouri, which only voted against Obama by 9 points that year– and this no better demonstrated than in McCaskill’s own 6-point loss in 2018.

In the end, Greitens’ loss was for the better: even if Democrats’ primary meddling were to have been successful, it was entirely likely (and indeed, more likely than not) that Greitens would have won the November general election simply due to Missouri’s heavy conservative telt. And although Schmitt himself is no moderate — he was one of the many Republican AG’s who challenged the results of the 2020 election — Senator Schmitt is a far better reality than a Senator Greitens, which would have been an indictment of our moral principles and standards for those holding office.

In meddling with primaries, we play a dangerous game. Even though Greitens didn’t win the Senate election, was it worth aiding his campaign at all?

Is primary meddling a bridge too far?

Is Primary Interference Feeding Election Skepticism

Accompanying primary interference is a concern transcending the binary win versus loss dilemma: in a time where public trust in elections is at an all-time low and our democracy seems more endangered than ever before, is primary interference — which inherently involves manipulating the will of the people and the circumstances of the general election — exacerbating these problems?

This consequence remains under-discussed. How do we measure the impact of primary interference on public trust in elections?

Even when it works, primary interference can actually strengthen extremism and anti-democratic forces:

Take the 2022 House of Representatives election in MI-03. Republican Rep. Peter Meijer, who had voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the January 6th insurrection and had taken a defiant stance against right-wing conspiracies. Meijer earned the praise and admiration of many Democrats for his valiant actions, but unfortunately, Meijer had something which Democrats wanted: MI-3.

MI-03 voted for Joe Biden by just under 10% in 2020, making it a prime target for Democrats in 2022. Therefore, it wasn’t a surprise when reports arised that the DCCC had spent nearly $430,000 on ads promoting Meijer’s Republican opponent, John Gibbs, as a “tough-on-immigration, pro-Trump conservative.”³ Despite Meijer’s own extensive campaign treasury (owing to his massive personal wealth), he was narrowly defeated by a 3.6% margin.

Fast forward to November: Democrat Hillary Scholten defeated John Gibbs by a landslide 12.9% margin. Scholten’s victory galvanized Democrats in a state which had swerved rightward in previous years.

But it didn’t come without a cost.

Which is more valuable? Another rank and file Democrat, or, a truly principled Republican in a position of power (i.e. Meijer) who can use their influence to reshape their party? As the moderate faction of the GOP continues to recede, a standard-bearer is desperately needed — and Meijer, a charismatic and likeable politician who never shied away from mocking the far-right, was well fit for this position.

But instead, Meijer was voted out of office less than two years after he began his tenure.

Meijer might well have lost the primary without the “aid” of Democrats. Other House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, such as WA-03 Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and SC-05 Rep. Tom Rice, lost renomination against Trump-endorsed opponents.

Was it necessary for Democrats to involve themselves in the primary? Would our nation have been better served if Meijer had a fairer opportunity to win re-election?

Primary Interference: Exploring the Question

Just like anything else, this is not a black-and-white situation, and there is no single, all-encompassing, correct answer.

If we think about victory only in the context of the horserace, then primary interference might seem like a blatantly unethical (and needlessly risky) strategy — quasi-manipulating the will of the voters for no other reason than chasing the coveted win.

But victory, in our current political era - where the difference between a win and a loss can determine the fate of democracy - can appear to be a necessity.

Primary interference can have overwhelmingly positive or downright catastrophic political consequences, and the ethical questions it raises may be (partially) justified/rectified/answered by the moral necessity of victory — for our democracy, for our country.

As we saw with the aforementioned 2022 Senate election in Missouri, primary interference edges us closer to victory at the cost of a far more devastating defeat: elevating another extremist possibly at the expense of a more moderate and more principled candidate.

Primary Interference: Where I Stand

With great power, comes great responsibility. With these important questions and ramifications in mind, primary interference should be used sparingly and with great caution. It should not be used, for example, to impact contests where a candidate begins as an underdog for the sole purpose of making the race competitive: the potential negative consequences are too great.

So far, Democrats have shown themselves to be wise in choosing where (and where not) to meddle in primaries.

In my opinion, primary interference is best used as a means of shoring up a likely victory, rather than improving the odds of a tossup, or (dreadfully) attempting to make a usually out-of-reach race competitive. 

The most optimal (highest reward with the least risk) places for employing this strategy are in races where a campaign or party is favored from the get go. Take the 2022 elections in Illinois and New Hampshire. In both states, the incumbent Democrats – Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Sen. Maggie Hassan – were considered the favorites to win their election.

Illinois, being a Democratic stronghold federally, was a safer bet than New Hampshire, where Joe Biden won the state by a solid yet not overwhelming margin of 7 points. 

Pritzker, a billionaire, boosted Republican State House Rep. Darren Bailey in his primary.

The latter was considered an extremist by many, being an outspoken opponent of mask mandates during the height of the coronavirus pandemic to the point that was forcibly removed from the Illinois State House session by an 81-27 vote; of course, he was also an ardent Trump supporter. 

Pritzker likely didn’t need to aid Bailey in order to win the election.

However, seeing as how he had the money to do so, and considering that his 12-point margin of victory was rather low for Illinois standards, it was a move which stood only to benefit himself and Democrats. Who knows how close the margin might have been had Pritzker faced a more competent opponent?

In New Hampshire, Republican Don Bolduc eked out a 1-point win over State Senate president Chuck Morse in their respective primary. 

Considering that Democrats spent $3.2 million on ads supporting Bolduc’s primary candidacy, it’s a fair assumption that Bolduc likely would have lost the primary without the additional aid. 

Democrats’ gamble proved to be a success: Hassan prevailed by a 9-point margin of Bolduc, despite some late polling showing her losing the election by 1 or 2 percentage points. 

While Morse likely would have lost the election as well, he was a far more experienced candidate with institutional support. 

Perhaps he would have narrowed the margins further, thus giving Democrats more to worry about (and devote precious resources towards) in an already-dire election cycle.

The greatest strategies balance effectiveness with likeliness. 

The allure of victory can cloud one’s judgment, and while it is a common saying, perhaps there is no more universal one than this: it’s better to be safe than sorry.

1. https://www.politico.com/story/2012/07/mccaskill-meddles-in-gop-primary-078737

2. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/democrats-test-midterm-strategy-meddling-gop-governors-races-rcna28023

3. https://www.metrotimes.com/news/why-democrats-are-helping-a-far-right-candidate-defeat-rep-meijer-in-west-michigan-primary-30657622