By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, a Republican from Michigan targeted by Donald Trump for voting to impeach the former president in 2021, accused Democrats on Monday of subsidizing “the entire campaign” of his Trump-backed challenger in Tuesday’s primary election.
Meijer, who has been censured by two county Republican parties for opposing Trump and shunned by a third, is locked in a tight re-election race against John Gibbs, a far-right Republican and former Trump administration official who questions the election. of Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020. victory.
“You would think Democrats would look at John Gibbs and see the embodiment of what they say they fear most,” Meijer wrote in an op-ed that appeared Monday in the online newsletter Common Sense. “Instead, they are financing Gibbs.”
Democrats are promoting Gibbs and other far-right candidates in hopes of improving their odds in November’s midterm elections, when Republicans are widely favored to regain control of the House of Representatives.
Nationally, Democrats have spent millions on candidates echoing Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, even as party leaders say those same candidates pose a threat to American democracy. They have made similar moves in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois.
Meijer accused Democrats of selling “any pretense of principle for political expediency, while denouncing the fall of democracy and rationalizing the use of their hard-earned dollars to prop up the supposed object of their fears.”
He cited two Democratic members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, Jamie Raskin and Elaine Luria, for supporting the campaign against him. Raskin and Luria did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Meijer, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Democrats launched a $435,000 ad buy to promote Gibbs in the final days of the Michigan primary campaign.
That sum dwarfs the $345,000 in contributions Gibbs’ campaign has received since last November, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
“The Democrats are not just trying to push one candidate across the finish line: They are subsidizing his entire campaign,” Meijer wrote.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats that produced and financed Gibbs’ ad, was not immediately available for comment.
Meijer is not alone in his criticism of the Democratic strategy.
“This decision by the DCCC to try to bring down @RepMeijer, one of the few R’s who voted for impeachment, and lift his opponent MAGA who denies tomorrow’s @GOP primary election makes them an instrument of revenge. of Trump. That’s wrong”. David Axelrod, a former adviser to former Democratic President Barack Obama, tweeted.
(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)