“Republican Jitters”: GOP Panicking as Party Leaders Fail to End Intraparty Brawl

Washington Republicans scramble as messy and expensive showdown “provides an opening for Democrats”

ATLANTA — Today, yet another new report broke down the growing “Republican jitters” in Georgia, as GOP leaders begin to realize that the “bitter fight between Republican candidates provides an opening for Democrats” in the Senate race.

Washington Republicans keep trying and failing to end the intraparty battle between unelected “political mega-donor” Kelly Loeffler and top Trump ally Congressman Doug Collins, with even the president unable “to head off a drawn-out Republican brawl.” Now, the GOP is facing “an all-out Republican feud” that, as of today, is “about to get a lot worse” right when they can least afford an expensive and bitter showdown.

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Bloomberg News: Trump Allies’ Battle Over Senate Seat Prompts Republican Jitters

• President Donald Trump so far hasn’t been able to head off a drawn-out Republican brawl for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia that pits two candidates he’s praised against each other and triggered jitters within the party about potentially losing the seat in November.

• Collins last week rejected Trump’s attempt to lure him away from challenging Loeffler by floating the idea of making him a candidate to become the next U.S. spy chief.

• The concern for Republicans is that a bitter fight between Republican candidates provides an opening for Democrats.

• While Republicans hold a statewide edge in voting, some in the party worry a Loeffler-Collins battle could divide GOP voters and make it easier for a Democrat to win.

• Collins and his allies have launched broadsides against Loeffler as politically untested and anything but a Trump Republican, flagging her past support for Utah’s GOP Senator Mitt Romney.

• They’ve even questioned her depiction as a hunter in a posed ad with a shotgun over one shoulder, mocking her expensive outfit and saying she doesn’t have a Georgia hunting license.

• “Sending an untried and untested candidate against the Democrats could very well be a disaster. Doug is anything but untried and untested,” said Dan McLagan, a campaign spokesman for Collins.

• “Collins is everything Georgians hate about Washington,” NRSC Executive Director Kevin McLaughlin responded. “He is a swamp creature that claims to be conservative.”

• In the Senate [Loeffler’s] now a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over some aspects of Intercontinental Exchange businesses, prompting some Collins’ backers to raise questions about possible conflicts of interest.

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