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When Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper announced his retirement in January, Donald Trump, like many Republicans, were delighted. The longtime Tennessee congressman’s departure opened the door for a likely GOP pickup in the fall.
In fact, the former president wasted no time in announcing his choice for Cooper’s successor: Trump publicly supported former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, one of several former Fox News commentators who worked in the former Republican administration.
There were, however, several problems with the announcement, starting with the fact that Ortagus hadn’t yet launched a campaign. Making matters quite a bit worse, she’d only moved to Tennessee a year earlier, and didn’t actually live in the congressional district. It didn’t help that Ortagus supported Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign and the fact that her wedding was officiated by then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
But with Trump’s blessing and encouragement, Ortagus launched a campaign anyway — at which point it became clear that she didn’t know much about the Volunteer State or its 5th congressional district.
State and local Republican officials, many of whom proudly swear allegiance to Trump, made little effort to hide their aggravation, both with Ortagus and with the former president pushing her candidacy. A GOP backlash against the Trump-backed candidate soon followed.
In fact, the scope of the backlash has been a sight to behold. In the state capitol, Republican legislators advanced a legally dubious measure that would require U.S. House candidates to live in their districts for at least three years before becoming eligible to run for Congress. The fact that the unsubtle measure targeted Ortagus specifically was lost on no one.
But after the Tennessee secretary of state’s office said the measure wouldn’t apply to Ortagus because it became law after the April 7 filing deadline, the state GOP took action of its own to kick the Trump-backed candidate off the ballot. NBC News reported:
The Tennessee Republican Party voted Tuesday to remove former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus and two other people from the August primary ballot in the state’s 5th Congressional District.... The state GOP’s executive committee has the authority to disqualify candidates from the primary ballot for failing to adhere to the party’s bylaws, which require a candidate to have voted in three of the last four GOP primaries, as well as to actively participate in the state or local Republican parties.
Ortagus, a native Floridian, expressed “disappointment” with the move, and accused Tennessee Republicans of not sharing her “commitment to President Trump’s America First policies.”
Whether she intends to challenge the state party’s decision, possibly in court, remains unclear for now. (The state party also removed congressional candidates Robby Starbuck and Baxter Lee from the primary ballot, and their next moves are also unclear.)
As for Trump, as best as I can tell, the former president hasn’t said anything about his ostensible allies in Tennessee forcefully rejecting his handpicked candidate.
That said, the broader context is striking: Trump has positioned himself not only as the head of the Republican Party, but as effectively a party boss ruling over the GOP as if he were the head of an 19th-century machine. The former president has repeatedly boasted about the potency of his endorsement, as if he had the sole authority to pick primary winners.
But we’re occasionally reminded that Trump’s intra-party power has limits. He made his choice in Tennessee’s 5th; state and local Republicans decided they simply didn’t care what he wanted.