Go Big or Go Home
This past Tuesday, incumbent Rep. Renee Ellmers was defeated in the Republican primary in North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District.
Why is this a big deal? For starters, Renee Ellmers was one of the most liberal, big-government Republicans in Congress. A former Tea Party candidate, Ellmers went Washington the moment she set foot in D.C. The list of her apostasies is as long as it is offensive: Her staunch support for the crony capitalist Export-Import Bank; her multiple votes to increase the debt limit: her vote to fund Obamacare; her votes for wasteful pork projects like the Sheep Industry Improvement Center; and on and on it goes.
Second, defeating incumbents is never an easy task. Incumbents are privy to all sorts of advantages, from financial resources to political favors from their Washington friends. But Club members have never shied away from tough races. We believe politicians need to be held accountable for their votes.
Club for Growth Action spent over $700,000 in TV and digital ads highlighting Rep. Ellmers’ big-government record. And voters agreed with us. Ellmers lost decisively, garnering only 24 percent of the vote in a three-person race.
This is not the first time a Republican incumbent has lost his or her (heavily-Republican favored) seat to the strategic maneuvers of the Club for Growth PACs – and it won’t be the last. To date, Club members have helped topple many liberal Republicans. From Renee Ellmers to Arlen Specter (PA-Sen) to Joe Schwartz (MI-07) to Wayne Gilchrest (MD-01), Club members have helped replace these liberal Republicans with conservatives. Club members have also helped underdog conservatives like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz win against establishment-backed moderates.
In all of these cases, the Club for Growth PACs suffered the slings and arrows of the establishment’s ire. But Tuesday’s victory is a demonstration that the voters across America don’t take their marching orders from the establishment. And neither do we.