Using Primary Threats to Instill Party Discipline?

by dap | Dec 21, 2024 | Axios, Outside The Beltway, Politico

I have long argued that the decentralized nature of the nominations means that American parties are not especially disciplined. By this, I mean that the capacity of party leadership to force conformity on votes in the legislature is limited by the fact that party leadership does not fully control membership in the party.

In more disciplined party systems the ability of leadership to stop members of the party from using its label at the next election is a way to force party members to either toe the line or lose their seat. In the US, candidates enter the party by their own choice by filing paperwork at the local level to compete in nominating elections, i.e., primaries. Win the primary and the Republican or Democratic label is yours and, often because of the noncompetitive nature of US general elections, it could mean capturing the seat as well.

As a result, returning to the House or Senate typically requires winning the primary. And usually, incumbents do quite well in such contests, if anything because they almost always have a substantial money and name-recognition advantage. There is always some fear of being “primaried” by being challenged by a well-known and/or well-funded opponent. But this is normally a very ad hoc threat.

This appears to be changing, at least for the GOP. There appears to be a growing centralization of this threat funded by Elon Musk.

I was already planning to write about this phenomenon as it pertains to the Hegseth nomination, but then last night I saw that Trump wanted to stop the spending bill in Congress and threatened to primary any Republican who voted for it (see, via the AP, Trump threatens Republicans who support funding measure will ‘be Primaried’ ). This morning I woke up to hear that that the bill is now on hold.

Again, the notion that individual members of Congress might face a serious primary challenge is not new. And Trump threatening to endorse a challenger in such a scenario is also not new. What appears to be new is the notion of a coordinated/centralized threat of this nature to force party discipline on specific votes in the legislature via the deployment of Musk-funded PACs and siccing the right-win mob on individual members of Congress. The threat of Musk funding primary challenges has been in the air since the election, but this week there was already evidence it was becoming reality.

Specifically, I would note the case of Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA). Ernst appeared to be a likely holdout on the Hegseth SecDef vote. She had the moral high ground as the first female combat veteran elected to Congress and also was known as a champion who fought against sexual harassment/abuse in the military. She appeared poised to vote against Hegseth and then the Trump machine unleashed a media and advertising campaign against her and there was a clear threat of a primary challenge. Ernst is up for re-election in 2026.

Ernst appears now to have caved.

I recommend The Daily from Monday , which details the entire Ernst story. See, also, this write-up in the NYT: Ernst, Under MAGA Pressure, Signals Backing for Hegseth’s Pentagon Bid .

Mr. Trump’s hard-line backers paid for ads  in Ms. Ernst’s home state, questioned her Republican bona fides  on social media and even threatened to launch  primary challenges against her in 2026 to push her toward supporting Mr. Hegseth as the nominee.

Some prominent Trump activists, including Charlie Kirk and Stephen K. Bannon, the right-wing strategist, pushed to recruit Kari Lake, the former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona who grew up in Iowa, as a potential challenger to Ms. Ernst.

Setting aside the moral failing one could assert that is on display here by Ernst, this is Trump demonstrating a substantial amount of power, and it is a combination of his standing in the party, but also the power of Musk’s money. The inclusion of a billionaire willing to spend millions of dollars to get a single vote in the Senate is a game-changer in a way that solidifies Trump’s grip on the GOP.

It may be that the media blitz, and commensurate constituent pressure it likely generated, is more the issue than the primary threat at this stage, but the willingness to engage in such a media blitz over this one vote is a gauntlet being thrown. If Trump’s allies have the ability to coordinate a media campaign this quickly and easily over Hegseth (and demonstrate their willingness to spend) it is certainly enough to make the primary threat feel more concrete.

I have argued that the nomination of problematic and unqualified individuals to very important jobs was going to be a test of Trump’s power and a measurement of where the Senate GOP was. Ernst’s willingness to vote for Hegseth is a triumph for Trump and a failure of leadership and independence for the Senate GOP.

It may well be that the ability to coordinate these kinds of attacks will instill party discipline. A disturbing element of this is the simple fact that this discipline would not be because of a party unified around ideology or a governing philosophy linked to long-standing voter feedback. No, this would be a discipline driven by fear of Elon Musk’s bank account and his willingness to fund Trump’s whims.

This is not a healthy development for American politics and is yet another sign of the rising power of oligarchs in American politics.

Along those lines, see the following via Politico which demonstrated Musk’s influence and irresponsibility: Elon Musk fueled backlash to spending plan with false and misleading claims . See, also, from The Hill: House Democrat: ‘Unelected oligarch’ Musk ‘governing by tweet’ . And this timeline from Axios: Behind the Curtain: Musk’s America .

One of the threats of Trump 2.0 was that he would empower fringe actors who could do a lot of damage. Well, Musk is both being empowered by Trump and is also empowering him.

On balance, I think that more disciplined parties are better for democratic competition because it creates a stronger, clearer signal as to what the party stands for. But what we are seeing here is the personalization of one of the parties via piles of cash.

Maybe all this is bluster, but if members of Congress capitulate, it is effective bluster. It will be interesting and telling to see if the primary threat continues to be dangled over the heads of congressional Republicans and how much it controls their behavior.

The longer-term question will be how much will billionaire influencers like Musk continue this kind of political role. I fear that we are seeing a significant shift toward direct oligarchic power in our elections which is not healthy in the least.