Why Democrats Have Poured Millions Into a Risky Strategy Elevating MAGA Republicans

Dan Cox pushed for Donald Trump to seize voting machines in the month after the 2020 presidential election, and he pals around with QAnon supporters. During the January 6 insurrection, as rioters closed in on Mike Pence, Cox tweeted that the vice president was a “traitor.” And last Tuesday night, Cox won the Republican nomination for governor of Maryland with the help of more than $1 million in TV ads from…Democrats?

It has already been a very strange few years in American politics, but this fall’s elections will provide the high-stakes test of a seemingly counterintuitive strategy, one that will prove to be either evil genius or incredibly stupid. Democrats—desperate to energize midterm voters who are weary of inflation, COVID, and, well, Democrats—are spending time and money elevating extremist Republican candidates. The theory is that providing the starkest possible contrast increases the chances of a Democratic victory. So in Maryland, it meant the Democratic Governors Association bankrolling ads boosting Cox at the expense of Kelly Schulz, a more moderate Republican who had been backed by the state’s Republican establishment, including incumbent governor Larry Hogan. In Illinois, the DGA provided a similar, successful assist to the Trump-endorsed Darren Bailey, a MAGA stalwart who beat two somewhat more centrist primary opponents. Dems have also tried to assist those they believe to be weaker Republican general election opponents in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race; a U.S. Senate race in Colorado; and a U.S. House contest in California.

“It’s crazy like a fox,” says Cornell Belcher, a strategist who worked on both of Barack Obama’s winning presidential campaigns. “If you can impact the odds of winning on the front end, it’s hard to argue with doing it. If I have the ability to run against someone who I know is going to be the weaker opponent, I shouldn’t do that? That’s la-la land shit. The likelihood that Maryland will go Republican in November is a lot less today than it would have been if the Hogan-like candidate had prevailed in that primary.”

JB Pritzker, the incumbent Illinois governor, recently dumped $24 million of his own fortune into the Democratic Governors Association, fueling talk that he wants to make a presidential run in 2024. In the short term, though, Pritzker’s money helped buy “issue education” ads aiding Bailey’s Republican primary run. The strategy seems to already be paying off, albeit in a tragic context: Just less than one week after winning the Republican nomination, Bailey introduced himself to many Illinois voters by urging people to “move on” quickly from the July 4 mass shooting in a Chicago suburb (he later apologized for the comment). “Could Darren Bailey win? Anything’s possible,” says Aviva Bowen, an Illinois Democratic strategist. “But I just don’t see Illinois voters supporting a candidate who wants to make abortion illegal in cases of rape and incest, and who has talked about excising Chicago from the state. So I think it was a shrewd move.”

This type of gamesmanship is not unprecedented; the most famous example of it working is Claire McCaskill’s defeat of Todd Akin in a Missouri U.S. Senate race. But that was back in 2012, in a political atmosphere that looks downright quaint compared to today’s hyperpolarization. “It’s been tried many times. It’s worked very few times,” says John Del Cecato, a national Democratic strategist who is based in New York. “It is dangerous to play for a certain candidate and then celebrate when they win, particularly when there’s a late primary season going into the general. Because now you carry a certain amount of momentum from the win. Those in your base and some of your persuadable targets see you as having something special.”

The dynamics of individual races vary, of course, but what’s connecting and driving the playing-with-fire strategy is a pervasive pessimism. For all the sound logic of maneuvering to run against a weaker opponent, there’s also a dispiriting sense that without some nutjob or menacing villain on the other side, Democratic candidates can’t win on their own. “I watch focus groups, and Democratic voters are totally checked out and depressed,” one strategist says. “They’re just so sick of everyone involved in politics. Yes, the Supreme Court’s Roe decision enraged them. But some of that ire is directed at their own party: Why the fuck did you guys not codify this when you had the chance? Instead of righteous indignation, it’s more like righteous resignation. So anything that would light a fire under Democrats in November is welcome.”