The GOP is escalating its push to head off problematic nominees in a slate of critical states that could determine control of the Senate next year.

With the first intraparty contest now just three months away, Senate Republican leaders are entering a vital stretch as they work to nudge primaries toward their preferred candidates with public endorsements and campaign aid. By summertime, the GOP will learn whether its aggressive gambit paid off.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell averted some primaries and have all but locked up retiring Sen. Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia. Yet Republicans are still facing internecine battles in states like Arizona, Ohio and Montana that could upend their best-laid plans. So they’re working harder to ensure they make the most of next fall’s highly favorable Senate map for their party, believing they can effectively close off Democrats’ path to the majority if they succeed.

In Arizona, some Republicans want to clear the field for Kari Lake by urging her opponent to primary a House member instead. In Ohio, GOP Sen. J.D. Vance is trying to sell party leaders on his preferred pick in a three-way contest. And in Daines’ home state, he and his allies are looking to end the GOP primary before it starts.

Conservatives are smarting at some of the GOP leaders’ tactics, but Daines isn’t bothered.

“I like where we’re at,” Daines said in an interview. “There are groups outside that are keeping a close eye on these primaries and not afraid to get behind candidates they believe can not just win a primary but a general election.”

It’s all part of a broader strategy that breaks sharply from the GOP’s unsuccessful last election cycle, when Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) took an entirely hands-off approach to the primary season. Daines has already endorsed a half-dozen candidates, and has buy-in from allies that can help him follow through.

Montana is the biggest unknown. Republicans fear GOP Rep. Matt Rosendale, who lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in 2018, could scramble their efforts to take back the Senate. Rosendale has not said whether he will enter the race, and a super PAC with ties to Daines is already hard at work trying to help Navy veteran Tim Sheehy edge Rosendale out.

Republicans at least avoided a repeat of an ugly primary in Pennsylvania. Republican Dave McCormick, the 2022 runner-up to Mehmet Oz, has the race to himself. But in other top-target states, the Senate GOP expects some brutal intraparty battles despite leaders’ attempts to winnow the fields. Ohio and Michigan are descending into bloodbaths as multiple self-funders vie for the nomination in each state. A similar dynamic could play out in Wisconsin.

“It’s a sort of volatile political season that we’re in,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “And so I think you could expect more people to run. People are motivated.”

With West Virginia all but certain to fall in their favor, Republicans only need to pick up one more Senate seat — or the presidency — to win the majority. Montana and Ohio are the ripest targets, with Ohio’s primary in March and suspense building around Rosendale’s will-he-or-won’t-he campaign.

“I would say he would be ill-advised to run at this point,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) said of Rosendale. He acknowledged the representative “rarely” listens to advice.

More Jobs, Less Government, a PAC formed in 2019 to aid Daines’ own reelection effort, has dropped over $1.1 million into efforts to boost Sheehy. The Navy veteran is also airing his own ads, and two Republican polls have shown Sheehy edging out Rosendale in a potential primary. Rosendale is emboldened by the NRSC’s opposition, seething in a three-minute video that “instead of using their resources to expose Jon Tester for the liberal that he is, they’re spending their time trying to keep me out of this race.”

In Ohio, Vance is trying to avoid a repeat of 2022, when he won a vicious primary that created a rift for the national GOP that lingered all the way into the fall. Democrats are enjoying it, to say the least.

“Usually what happens is the more extreme candidate wins. And a lot of damage is done to whoever emerges,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who runs the party’s campaign arm. “That’s going to be good for Sherrod Brown.”

Yet with Daines in favor of more aggressive tactics, Vance is pitching him on business executive Bernie Moreno over Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan. The idea is to bring the party together sooner rather than later.

“Bernie has the best chance of uniting the different factions of the party. Which is really important in a state like Ohio where you still have some of the old-guard Kasich-style Republicans, but a very powerful sort of Trump wing, too,” Vance said.

Daines said right now he believes all the state’s candidates could win a general election. Thune has also met with Moreno, as well as LaRose.

Yet Senate Republicans are flexing their muscles farther afield.

After Lake launched her bid, Arizona Republicans began plotting whether or not they could convince her primary rival Mark Lamb to instead consider running against a rabble-rousing first-term representative who helped depose ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), according to two people familiar with the conversations.

That would pit Lamb, the Pinal County Sheriff, against Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) and eliminate any primary for Lake. The goal is to shift the GOP’s focus fully to the general election. Lamb hasn’t bowed out yet, and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Asked about the maneuvering, Daines said: “That primary will sort itself out. Kari Lake’s in a very strong position in Arizona.”

The NRSC chair has got work to do elsewhere, too. In Wisconsin, Daines appeared to jump out in front of a recruit’s launch when he announced that Eric Hovde, the NRSC’s preferred candidate, would soon enter the Senate race. That move was a thinly veiled warning to Republican Scott Mayer, another self-funder who could run against Hovde. David Clarke, a controversial ex-sheriff, is also toying with a run and leads the field in some public polling.

In Michigan, Sandy Pensler, a wealthy businessperson, jumped into a chaotic GOP primary for an open Senate seat, a race that already includes former Detroit Police Chief James Craig and former Reps. Peter Meijer and Mike Rogers. Adding to the concern on the GOP side: Democrats are coalescing around Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).

“We tend to feed on our own, unfortunately,” said Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.)

The NRSC endorsed Rogers and urged Meijer not to run for Senate, creating a public spat with the former member. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) tried to convince Meijer to run for his old House seat after he lost a primary to a Trump-aligned candidate in 2022. Democrats picked up the seat.

Walberg endorsed Rogers and said Meijer’s Senate candidacy could create that dynamic again in 2024: “It’s always a real risk.”

Even a guaranteed pick-up is not without controversy. An establishment-aligned outside group is now running ads in favor of NRSC-backed West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who is facing conservative Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.). Justice was recruited as a strong general election candidate — but now that Manchin is retiring, conservatives are questioning the strategy.

“I don’t know one person in or out of the party who thinks that seat in West Virginia is going to go Democratic,” said Mooney supporter Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), questioning why the party would spend money to elevate Justice. “I don’t understand why it makes sense to do that.”

With a border deal hanging in the balance and the Iowa caucuses a month away, Donald Trump amplified his attack on immigrants at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday.

“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” the former president said. “They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia.”

While in the White House, Trump sought to deter immigration by building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, building some 450 miles of fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile border, much of which replaced existing barriers. In addition to strict border security measures, his administration also implemented a travel ban for people from several predominantly Muslim countries.

If reelected, Trump has pledged to finish the border wall, reinstitute travel bans and launch mass deportation efforts. He has also pledged to end birthright citizenship for those born to immigrants living in the country illegally.

Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) met with administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, on Saturday as they sought to forge a compromise on border security that could also unlock aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

But Trump was undeterred in his attack on immigrants Saturday.

“All over the world, they’re pouring into our country. Nobody is even looking at them, they just come in and the crime is going to be tremendous, the terrorism is going to be,” Trump said.

A junior aide to Sen. Ben Cardin is no longer employed by the Senate, the Maryland Democrat’s office said Saturday, following news reports linking the staffer to a sex tape filmed in a Capitol Hill hearing room.

Portions of the tape were published by the Daily Caller on Friday showing two men having sex in the cavernous Hart Senate Office Building hearing room that has played host to Supreme Court nominees, 9/11 Commission meetings and former FBI Director James Comey’s blockbuster 2017 testimony on Donald Trump. The American Spectator previously reported that a Cardin staffer was involved.

Neither report named the staffer, but other conservative outlets identified one person seen in the video as Aidan Maese-Czeropski, a legislative aide to Cardin.

Cardin’s office, after not commenting yesterday on what it called a “personnel matter,” said in a statement first provided to POLITICO on Saturday morning that “Aidan Maese-Czeropski is no longer employed by the U.S. Senate.”

“We will have no further comment on this personnel matter,” the statement added.

Maese-Czeropski on Friday night posted a statement to LinkedIn that did not unambiguously deny involvement.

“This has been a difficult time for me, as I have been attacked for who I love to pursue a political agenda,” he wrote. “While some of my actions in the past have shown poor judgement, I love my job and would never disrespect my workplace. Any attempts to characterize my actions otherwise are fabricated and I will be exploring what legal options are available to me in these matters.”

He separately denied allegations that he had accosted Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) in a Capitol hallway Wednesday by telling the Jewish lawmaker, “Free Palestine.”

Attempts to reach Maese-Czeropski on Saturday were not immediately successful. He had worked for Cardin since October 2021, according to congressional records, and previously worked as an intern for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in 2018.

U.S. Capitol Police did not respond to an email Saturday asking whether an investigation is underway. Aides to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment.

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House Republicans are entering a new phase in their potential impeachment of President Joe Biden — one that raises plenty of questions about what comes next.

The GOP investigation, which centers on the business deals of Hunter Biden and other family members, has yet to find any clear link between Joe Biden’s actions as president or vice president and his family’s financial arrangements. Despite that, every House Republican on Wednesday supported a formal inquiry to try to uncover a smoking gun.

That unity sent GOP lawmakers home from Washington with high spirits, even as the president and Democrats torched their efforts as a politically motivated sideshow.

Regardless of the substance of their impeachment inquiry, the vote to formalize it does give them more legal authority as they seek to enforce their subpoenas and records requests. It also creates a new set of hurdles for them to clear before they decide whether to pursue formal articles of impeachment.

Here’s a guide to the basics — and the complications — of the impeachment inquiry.

Does Congress always vote to formally launch impeachment inquiries?

Congress has extremely wide latitude in what it chooses to investigate. But the House’s vote to formalize an impeachment inquiry strengthens the probe’s legal power as its committees issue subpoenas and demand documents. It also sets parameters and assigns panels to lead the investigation.

The House has impeached a president before without a vote to greenlight an inquiry. Former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment, for example, saw articles introduced five days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

On the other side was the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, when House Republicans voted not only to launch an inquiry, but again months later to expand the scope of the probe beyond what was in the initial resolution.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) eventually followed that formalizing model in 2019 for Trump’s first impeachment. After months of unofficial investigations into Trump, she put an official launch of the inquiry into Trump to a vote on the House floor after pushback from the White House.

Do you need a formal inquiry to subpoena witnesses and get records?

The technical answer here is no — Republicans have held depositions and received tens of thousands of documents already without a formal vote.

But as they’ve tried to lock down final interviews, they’ve gotten pushback from the White House, which is taking a page from an unusual corner: Trump’s administration.

White House counsel Richard Sauber, in a letter last month, rebuffed House Republicans’ subpoena of a former White House counsel, pointing back to a January 2020 DOJ opinion. At the time, the Trump administration had pushed back on Pelosi’s decision to launch an impeachment inquiry without initially holding a vote, declaring Democrats’ demands invalid unless the chamber formally authorized them.

“[W]e conclude that the House must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation before the committee may compel the production of documents or testimony,” wrote Steven Engel, then the head of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel.

Does a formal inquiry mean we’ll see public hearings?

Not necessarily. And in this case, it’s possible they skip the dramatic public hearings before drafting articles of impeachment.

Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who are leading the inquiry, have not ruled out more hearings — and they’ve even said they are willing to do one with Hunter Biden if he sits for a closed-door deposition first. The inquiry resolution passed this week also lays out what those hearings would look like.

But as the two chairs plot out the final weeks of their investigation, they have a clear priority: finishing transcribed interviews and getting the rest of the documents they’ve requested. They are also preparing to go to court to compel testimony from two DOJ tax officials, and potentially also a former White House counsel.

Plus, Hunter Biden defied Republicans’ subpoena this week, showing up to the Capitol but skipping a closed-door interview. Rather than give in to his demands to hold a public hearing, Comer and Jordan have indicated they’ll likely push a vote to hold him in contempt of Congress.

Who DECIDES whether to introduce articles of impeachment?

Jordan referenced Trump’s first impeachment as a blueprint for how and when articles could be drafted for Biden — meaning that the Oversight Committee will likely issue a report and then, per the Ohio Republican, “the conference will make a decision on whether there’s articles.”

Ultimately, the decision to bring articles of impeachment to the floor rests with Speaker Mike Johnson. But with an agonizingly small majority, the posture of the GOP conference will play a significant role in that choice.

Johnson will face pressure from his right flank to impeach Biden while centrists, Republicans in battleground districts and even some old-school pragmatists may want a proverbial smoking gun if they are going to take the vote.

How long does it typically take between the House starting an inquiry and a vote to impeach?

Despite the tumult of the last four years, impeachments are exceedingly rare. And none have taken more than a few months between the start of an inquiry and a vote to actually remove a president.

Two of American history’s four impeachments have taken the House about three months from the announcement of an inquiry to a vote on the House floor:

Trump’s first impeachment: Pelosi announced that six House committees would begin a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump on Sept. 24, 2019. The House voted on Dec. 18 to impeach Trump on two counts: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. 

Clinton Impeachment: On Sept. 24, 1998, the House Judiciary Committee announced a resolution to begin an impeachment inquiry. On Dec. 19, the House voted to impeach Clinton on two charges: perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. 

The other two impeachments moved quickly. That includes the second time the House tried to remove Trump from office, which was nearly immediate. Though the chamber flirted repeatedly with moving to boot former President Andrew Johnson back in 1868 the final vote happened swiftly.
The Biden probe is on track to take a bit longer. For months, vulnerable Republicans fought against formalizing the impeachment inquiry, and the House GOP also spent three weeks trying to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as speaker. Key investigators say they’re aiming to decide whether to draft articles of impeachment as soon as mid-January.

Kevin McCarthy’s biggest antagonists gave Mike Johnson a honeymoon. But that’s over now, they say, and it’s time for the new speaker to start making some tough decisions.

Johnson sent the House home for the holidays on Thursday with no indication he’ll bring them back to Washington to take up a possible Senate deal on border security and Ukraine aid. He could soon have to choose whether to try to push a proposal that his right flank is likely to hate.

He also sidestepped a decision this week on government surveillance, a topic that has Republicans warring over competing proposals to rein in spy powers. In the process, he inflamed some of the same hard-liners who brought down McCarthy.

Once Congress returns next year, Johnson will have big problems to resolve: government funding that starts to expire Jan. 19, the potential border-Ukraine fight and warring surveillance proposals that are bitterly splitting the GOP conference.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who challenged McCarthy for speaker in January, said Johnson’s approach to the surveillance fight was more like “appeasement” than leadership — and that it could reflect the Louisianan’s leadership style and not just the tricky battle lines of the spy fight.

“When you try to please both [sides], you never please anybody,” Biggs said. “Maybe that’s just his personality? I don’t know. My thought was always we could shore him up, but I’m not so sure.”

Conservatives aren’t close to entertaining an effort to oust Johnson, given that McCarthy’s departure will soon shrink their majority to just two seats. But GOP hard-liners are clearly displeased with his attempts to stay above the fray, and they’re poised to make real trouble for him if he doesn’t start making hard calls. Of course, even if he does start choosing sides, he risks blowback of a different kind — particularly if he advances proposals that conservatives dislike.

Once the House returns to session, it will have less than two weeks before its first government funding deadline, with the second coming on Feb. 2. The House left town on Thursday without even reaching a bicameral agreement on how much total money to spend.

Asked when Johnson should take a hands-on approach to the funding fight, senior appropriator Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) jokingly replied: “Yesterday.”

“He’s trying to satisfy all of our conference, which I don’t know that he can. But I think he’s trying to do that. He’s listened to everybody,” Simpson said. “But you gotta remember this is the first time he’s been in this role, not even as an assistant majority leader, so it’s like drinking from Niagara Falls.”

When it comes to negotiations on pairing border changes with Ukraine and Israel aid, Johnson has called for the inclusion of the House GOP’s immigration bill — a conservative plan that would go nowhere in the Senate — while carefully avoiding any commitment to taking up a deal that has yet to materialize. The House has largely stayed on the sidelines of those talks.

If he bends at all toward the Senate, however, Johnson is likely to face more blowback from his right.

“We don’t know how to negotiate with the Senate. … The institution has to be more proactive,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). “We could have probably solved the Israel thing already. We could probably have done the border thing easier.”

“It helps if the speaker is involved,” Bacon added, while acknowledging that the House has been sidelined in major talks long before Johnson’s ascension.

So far, the Louisiana Republican has relayed to the White House, the Senate and to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that in order for the bill to be approved by the House, it has to include transformative change in border policy, provide accountability and oversight of Ukraine dollars, and get a clear articulation of the strategy from White House on what it will take for Ukraine to win its war with Russia.

His coming to-do list doesn’t just include spending or Ukraine aid, which Johnson also has asked for more oversight of before advancing any ultimate bipartisan deal. Congress has to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration and will return to the surveillance fight in April.

In many of those cases, Johnson has to quickly get up to speed on policy fights that he didn’t have to concern himself with before. And he has to do it while navigating what’s soon to become a two-seat majority — until the February special election to replace George Santos. Should a Democrat win that contest, Republican control of the House would hang by a one-seat thread.

Among some GOP colleagues, Johnson’s handling of the spy powers fight drew unflattering comparisons to a spat of 2018 immigration infighting that still rankles Republicans.

“Mike’s done a good job listening to people … but to execute, you’ve got to smash people together in the room and say this is what we’re going to do,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of three conservatives McCarthy installed on the powerful Rules Committee that determines which bills come to the floor.

Faced with the same surveillance squabble that Johnson’s encountering, Roy said he would have told both sides to “go sort this out” to select an option for a floor vote, or “I’m going to pick one.”

But despite that frustration on the right, conservatives argue Johnson is still better than his predecessor.

One of the right flank’s biggest complaints about McCarthy was their limited window on his decision-making for the conference, on top of what they saw as an unreliable tendency to go back on his word.

“McCarthy just didn’t tell the truth,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), adding that the “uniparty [establishment] doesn’t know what to do with” Johnson yet.

McCarthy allies, who still argue he was unfairly ousted, note that the former speaker stepped into the role with years of leadership experience that Johnson doesn’t have, not to mention the added benefit of time to vet his strategies. And some argue it’s too early in Johnson’s tenure to truly compare his style to McCarthy’s.

“It’s tough. Somebody who came into the position the way he did — unlike Kevin, Kevin knows everybody,” Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) said. “It’s taking [Johnson] a little bit longer and [he’s] taking the time to try to make sure he’s not making any decisions hastily.”

McCarthy himself applauded his successor’s performance so far during an exit interview this week. The California Republican advised the new speaker to not be afraid of the internal rebellion that ousted him from the top job.

Chaos within the House GOP “isn’t Johnson’s problem to fix,” McCarthy said. “This is the conference’s problem to fix.”

Yet some corners of the conference appear uninterested in taking chaos fully off the table. Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) — known as a leadership antagonist and set to be the next chair of the Freedom Caucus starting in January — is already issuing warnings to Johnson.

Good predicted this week that if Johnson fights for conservative policy wins next year, the hard-line bloc would be his “greatest cheerleaders.” But if he agrees to compromises that the right flank takes issue with, Good told reporters, “then the Freedom Caucus will absolutely be a problem.”

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.