House Democrats Cry Foul as Republicans Employ a Tactic Democrats Once Championed
“MAGA extremists are meddling in another Democratic Party primary with propaganda and lies. Stay the Hell out of our races with your malignant and desperate scheming.”
House Democrats are accusing the GOP of manipulating Democratic primaries nationwide. Given that Republicans are merely turning a tried-and-true Democratic primary tactic back on the party that pioneered it, their outrage is very hard to take seriously.
In its Tuesday morning newsletter, Axios reported that House Democrats are “seething” over what they view as a coordinated Republican effort to influence Democratic primaries. Working through “a trio of obscure super PACs with progressive-sounding names,” Republicans are trying to boost the most ideologically left-wing or scandal-plagued Democratic candidates hoping that they will be easier to defeat in the general election.
Axios named the three principal PACs involved in the effort and presented evidence demonstrating their ties to the Republican Party.
Lead Left PAC played in Nebraska’s 2nd District, Pennsylvania’s 7th and — most infamously — Texas’ 35th, where it reported spending over $1 million to boost Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist whose comments widely seen as antisemitic became a major flashpoint before she lost in a primary runoff.
Lead Left PAC’s website — which says the group “stands against MAGA extremists” and — included a link to the GOP fundraising site WinRed in its metadata, according to Punchbowl News.
Real Change PAC spent big to oppose the more moderate Democratic primary candidates in New Jersey’s 7th, Maine’s 2nd and California’s 22nd.
When one signs up for Real Change PAC’s email list, the group responds with an email from GOP consulting firm Cavalry LLC, as Axios first reported.
Progressive Champions PAC is spending at least $1.5 million against centrist Cait Conley in New York’s 17th district.
Between the lines: Republicans have played coy about their alleged role in these efforts, but there are clues pointing to their involvement.Progressive Champions PAC and Real Change PAC list the same bank of record on their FEC filings, with both reportedly using the same, Republican-affiliated compliance filing software.
According to the report, the strategy is being deployed in key battleground districts across the country.
If this strategy sounds familiar, it’s because Democrats employed the very same tactic against Republicans during the 2022 midterm primaries and, to some extent, in 2024 — a fact that Axios readily acknowledges. By spending money to boost GOP candidates they viewed as too extreme to win a general election, Democrats helped shape Republican primaries for their own electoral advantage. Now that Republicans appear to be using the same playbook, many Democrats are crying foul.
The perpetually outraged House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries lashed out at the GOP on X last week: “House Republicans are a complete failure. That’s why MAGA extremists are meddling in another Democratic Party primary with propaganda and lies. Stay the Hell out of our races with your malignant and desperate scheming.”
House Republicans are a complete failure.
That’s why MAGA extremists are meddling in another Democratic Party primary with propaganda and lies.
Stay the Hell out of our races with your malignant and desperate scheming. pic.twitter.com/90t7yEFt7B
— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeemjeffries) June 12, 2026
A former House Republican who spoke to Axios on the condition of anonymity said, “After Dems ran these fake PACs two years ago, Republicans have entered the fray with the same strategy. New York’s 17th District is one of the districts [where] it’s being employed.”
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told Axios that what Republicans are doing is “awful,” but argued it was ultimately “inevitable” given Democrats’ use of the same strategy in 2022 and 2024.
In an attempt to defend his party’s meddling in GOP elections, an anonymous former House Democrat insisted there were “no fake shell Dem PACs from those years.”
Axios and several Democrats they spoke to freely admitted the party interfered directly in GOP primaries to boost the weakest candidates:
What they’re saying: Democrats “aren’t happy” that Republicans are “trying to help the far left,” a senior House Democrat told us.
“This type of spending is as prevalent as it is awful — by Dems and Republicans,” Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-Md.) told us.
The bottom line: This is all made possible in part by campaign finance laws allowing these groups to keep their funding sources hidden until after primary day.
“If only Congress had the ability to do something about these super PACs,” Olszewski told us sarcastically, adding, “Oh wait.”
Democrats are free to argue that Republican meddling in their primaries is wrong. What’s harder to do is explain why it was acceptable when Democrats spent millions boosting Republican candidates they believed would be unelectable. Having embraced the strategy when it served their interests, they now find themselves confronting an uncomfortable reality: Republicans have simply turned the same playbook against them.
In other words, maybe Jeffries should sit this one out.
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It’s always satisfying to reflect that the Democrats biggest boner in wielding the strategy was Donald Trump himself. They backed him as the Republican most likely to lose. Oops.
Yep. That was the first thing to come into my mind, too. Trump was expected to make for an easy win for the Hildabeast.
Haha.
“Polls show Clinton at 82%, Trump 15%, with 3% undecided.”
On election night, I went to the NY TImes election page. Which, for watching election results, is actually very well done – literally the only thing I ever go to the Times for.
Their prediction was 99% Hillary, 1% Trump.
I wasn’t a Trump guy in the primaries or, really, in the general election but my position on Hilary was that I’d willing climb a mountain of razor blades soaked in alcohol, naked, to register a vote against the single most corrupt creature in the entire history of our Republic.
Watching that % change, fast, as the results started coming in was really fun.
I was not an early Trump fan. I was concerned that he was just an old school Democrat prone to the mistakes of Democrats. When he it became clear he was the likely nominee I looked for positive reasons to vote for him rather than just against Hillary. The SCOTUS became my single issue. The country would have been lost if Hillary had put three justices on the court.
Not that voting against Hillary is not sufficient. I just like to have a positive reason to vote for someone.
Me too. I was afraid that he was still the liberal Democrat he’d always been, and the Clintons’ BFF as he had been until literally the day he announced his candidacy, and that after the election he would renew his friendship with them and invite them into his administration. If I must have a D president, at least let her have a D after her name.
And I still think that was his original plan, but when he reached out to the Clintons after the election they rejected him. Their pride had been hurt, and they couldn’t bear to play secondary roles in his administration, so they turned him down and he was forced into our hands. He did a good job in his first term, so I did vote for him in 2020, and again in 2024. And so far he’s done a very good job again. But I still think he doesn’t really believe in it, and would still be a Democrat if they hadn’t rejected him.
I was also concerned that Trump was a “limousine liberal” and didn’t vote for him in the 2016 primary. After listening to him in that campaign, as opposed to the MSM, I joined the Trump Train have not regretted it a day since. His energy as an 80 year old is astonishing!
“What was I supposed to do, call him for cheating better than me in front of the others?”
Sayeth Doyle Lonnegan.
The outrage is quite strange since the Democrats are the party who attempted to run a “Republican” Dan Sullivan in Alaska against the real Republican Dan Sullivan. Fortunately, Alaska saw through this and eliminated the imposter from the Republican primary ballot. Nice try Hakeem!
Let’s keep Jeffries permanently outraged. Maybe the country will be lucky and he’ll stroke out.
He is always permanently outraged. Perfect example of the democrats symbol- a jackass.
The Angry Black Man ®.
Minus the scars, he’s got the face of a boxer who lost a lot of bouts.
We could be that lucky.
Nah. I’m a huge fan of having Jeffries as the House D’s caucus leader for decades to come.
He’s a stuffed suit. A complete non-entity.
You never take a chance knocking out an enemy leader that is so completely incompetent. The replacement would almost certainly be more dangerous.
Trump should nominate Jeffries to the Easter Island ambassadorship where he will fit right in with the other statues,
If Dr. Frankenstein made a creature without a brain it would look just like Hakeem Jeffries.
Or a brain from A B Normal,
ie: Your average democrat.
Easter Island is not a country, so we have no ambassador to it. We don’t even have a consul there. In fact almost no one does. The only country with a consul on Easter Island is the UK, and that person is only an honorary consul.
I’m just spit balling here, but could it be that the whole Easter Island thing was a joke?
No, it’s real. I’ve seen pictures of it.
Of course it was a joke. And I’m playing along with it. But of course Spike is correct. Not only have I seen pictures, I’ve met someone who is from there and speaks the language.
Even better.
The joke was mildly amusing, but watching this retard fact check it is just hilarious.
Milly always has an answer to anything that might be offensive to the left. He reminds me of my wife! I told her “you have been correcting everything I’ve said for 50 years”! She replied “51 years”!
Humor. Hyperbole. Google it.
Does that stick hurt?
It’s got to be painful when you sit down.
However, since your head’s clearly empty, it’s probably a clear path there at the other end.
Hey, be nice to Milhouse. Yes, he has a terminal case of OCD, but he does serve a pupose here.
Jefferies is the best thing Pelosi ever did for the Republican party! We must try to keep him in his position as long as possible!
Looks like she did what Presidents do,.,.. find a bigger idiot to follow her as Der Leader so she would look good by comparison (except that she will never level good). What she should have done instead in nominate a glass of water with a yellow sticky with a D affixed and the democrats being the lemmings they are would have voted it in.
After that, MSDNC will hire him as a liecaster.
Why, that’s racist!
If Spartacus is Dollar Store obama, then Jeffries is TEMU Obama…
USE RICO TO PERMANENTLY ABOLISH THE LYING, SATANIC DEMOCRAT CRIME CABAL
The left literally tried to screw Alaska by finding a Dan Sullivan and bankrolling him to declare and run in the primary.
They can screw right off all the way to the horizon.
He was denied being put on the ballot. So the lawsuits will ensue. Republicans are looking forward to depositions, I hope.
I don’t see how depositions are relevant in this case. The appeal to the court will be entirely about the law, and Beecher’s interpretation of it. Should the word “properly” in the statute be interpreted narrowly or broadly? That’s all.
I’ve got a couple of decades of experience watching democrats “meddle” in Republican primaries. It’s nothing new.
They also run as Republicans, at least in Texas.
Cornyn…
Schadenfreude!
Politics is a tough racket. Meddling in the opposition party primary to create controversy/get a more radical, potentially easier to defeat candidate in the general election is old hat. No whining from hypocrites. Taking out a perceived threat in a primary or weakening them with an unexpectedly tighter race is fair game. So is claiming the scalp of a politician who you feel deserves it, political contests ain’t two hand touch, its full contact and you can quit and go home if you don’t like that.
That said I’d prefer we spend $ to defeat the more dangerous candidates in their primary. If Platner, El-Sayed win their Senate elections and Hamawy wins his HoR race they’re gonna be incredibly dangerous. Especially the two potential Cray Cray Senators due to Senate rules. When or if one or more of these three whackos gets elected no whining from the folks who spent $ in other primary contests but didn’t oppose them at every opportunity b/c ‘reasons’.
chuckle tee hee, snort guffaw!
Just be careful using what I think is the SPLC approach to political campaigning. Surprises could happen and bite you.
Oh, it’s a lot older than that. Just for one example of many, back in 2012, in the GOP primary for senator for Missouri, Claire McCaskill secretly backed Todd Akin’s campaign, including by sharing polling data with it as well as by having cutaway PACs run ads for him (or attacking him for being “too conservative”, which is the same thing), because she saw him as the easiest opponent to beat. She barely hid what she was doing, and after the election she openly admitted at least some of it.
I was living in Todd Akin’s district when this happened. I knew some local independent’s who refused to vote for her because of her dirty tactics.
“House Democrats are accusing the GOP of manipulating Democratic primaries nationwide. Given that Republicans are merely turning a tried-and-true Democratic primary tactic back on the party that pioneered it, their outrage is very hard to take seriously.”
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh!
Pink-hatted Temu-Obama pansy Hakeem Jeffries can go wet a rope upwardly.
I live in a solidly red community with a “closed” primary so that only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primaries. The Democrats openly urge all Democrats to register as Republicans and to vote in the primary for the most extreme candidate with the worst personal history. The Democrat primaries are usually uncontested because the local Dem party bosses have made their choice and “enforce” it.
Well then Mr. Dollar Tree Obama, how about adopting MY Plan to REFORM Political Contributions? PASS A LAW that ONLY the people DIRECTLY AFFECTED by an office can donate and limit donations to what an average American CITIZEN can afford – no more than $400.00 per year! Eliminate the PAC’s since it seems like each side contradicts the other and just confuses the less intelligent DEMOcrat voters! Put the politicians back on the streets, knocking on doors, and being beholden to their CONSTITUENTS and NOT their SPONSORS! I left off the age old practice of Kissing Babies due to certain proclivities of the leftists!
Congress CAN’T pass such a law. The constitution absolutely forbids it.
In the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s there was a political leader in Baltimore named James H. “Jack” Pollack. He controlled 2 of Baltimore’s 6 districts, the 4th and 5th districts. If his hand picked candidate was under water, he would run a “names the same” candidate against the opponent. It often worked in his favor. There was another candidate who changed his name because the candidates were listed alphabetically. His name was changed from Rennie Marks to Rennie Marks Aabach. It was not successful since he lost.
Ahhh! Politics. That which is old is new again.
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