Targets Republicans

Liberal group targets Republicans who voted to overturn 2020 election

The Voter Protection Project expects to spend $10 million in total on midterm House and Senate races.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN

A liberal voting rights group is pledging to spend at least $1 million to oust 20-plus Republican members of Congress who voted to contest the presidential election results.

The Voter Protection Project, which shared its plans first with POLITICO, is releasing its target list on Friday. Each of the House members and senators in the PAC’s crosshairs has been singled out in part because they won their last races by single digits.

The list, which the organization dubs the “Treason Caucus,” includes Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Rick Scott (Fla.). Reps. Devin Nunes (Calif.), Darrell Issa (Calif.), Scott Perry (Pa.) and Jeff Van Drew (N.J.) are among the House members the PAC is looking to unseat.

“These are people who perpetuate the big lie [that] this election was stolen from Donald Trump,’” said Andrew Janz, founder of the Voter Protection Project, who ran against Nunes in 2018. “These are people who — after insurrectionists and domestic terrorists tried to overthrow an election — these are the same members of Congress, same politicians, who went back on the House floor, on the Senate floor, and voted in support of these insurrectionists by trying to invalidate a legal and fair election.”

A total of 139 Republican House members and eight senators voted to object to the election results in January, shortly after a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Separately, the group is making public another target list of more challenging races — tagged “Most Wanted” — which includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Matt Gaetz (Fla.).

The Voter Protection Project, which said these two groups are its initial priorities for the midterm elections, expects to spend $10 million in total on the midterm races. The PAC poured more than $8 million into the 2020 election cycle.

Despite the absence of new House redistricting maps, the group said it wants to begin recruiting and fundraising for Democratic candidates immediately. A major question facing the party is whether it can continue to excite grassroots donors, volunteers and rank-and-file voters at the same rate it has in recent years now that Trump is no longer in office to motivate them.

”Now is not the time to let up pressure on a desperate Republican Party who has been sent to the minority by voters,” said Voter Protection Project Executive Director Heather Greven in a statement. “VPP isn’t wasting any time by naming our top early targets and building a war chest to take on the enemies of voting rights and Democracy.”