The GOP's Endless Scandals
Up and down the nation, it seems like almost every major Republican candidate for any particular office has a controversy of some sort going on.
While it is unsurprising to see Trump in the news every day with a new controversy abound, his Republican colleagues used to not be so scandal plagued. Nowadays though, it seems like any Republican of particular significance—especially those running in an election—has at least one issue going on currently.
This can be seen most clearly in the battle for the US Senate, where it seems every single battleground candidate—or at least frontrunner for the primaries undecided—bear one (Nevada) has a problem going on, with scandals ranging from small to large, in states both on the periphery as well as on center point. Going into specifics, we have seen in the last two months alone reports of scandals come out of two of the most pivotal races in the Senate, being Montana and Ohio with regards to controversies involving stolen valor and an adult website respectively. This continues in other states as well, including in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—states that will also be pivotal to the presidential race—where the two frontrunners for the GOP nominations in their respective states, Eric Hovde and David McCormick are embroiled in controversy.
No better is the House either. Even with ignoring the entire fiasco that was George Santos or the never-ending chaos that is the House GOP Conference, it seems that plenty of House Republicans have controversies to spare. Lauren Boebert’s and Majorie Taylor Greene’s several scandals are often highlighted currently, but there are more looking back at the not-too-recently, such as with Matt Gaetz and former representatives Madison Cawthorn and Steve King.
Even looking outside of Congress the Republican scandals do not seem to stop. In North Carolina’s governor race—likely the only one on the boardgame in 2024 except for New Hampshire—the GOP’s Mark Robinson has seemingly been attempting to give Doug Mastriano’s 2022 PA gubernatorial campaign a run for its money, with some of the most extreme controversies back-to-back.
Looking at everything, it has yet to be seen how this will all affect the results of the election in November. However, if recent elections are anything to go by, it will only hurt Republicans’ chances even more. No matter what though, it seems that Trump’s magnetic nature to controversies has spread throughout the GOP.