Anti-Trump senator Jeff Flake announces he will not run in 2018

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. Congressional photo.

Anti-Trump GOP senator Jeff Flake announces that he will not run in 2018. New York Times. Flake announced his retirement during a 17 minute speech in congress complaining about President Trump's tone. Flake's policies seemed to have little place in a Republican Party led by Donald Trump as he is pro-immigration and pro-globalism. Many Republicans were also furious with Flake due to the possibility of him torpedoing tax reform, a major GOP goal. Flake was likely to lose his seat regardless as his approval rating was a dismal 18% and he was trailing his primary opponent, Dr. Kelli Ward, a pro-Trump candidate, by 27 points.

My Comment:

I don't believe for a second that Flake is retiring because of his criticism of Trump. Well, technically he is because doing so caused his base to completely abandon him, but the real reason is because he couldn't get elected as dog catcher in Arizona. He was massively behind his primary opponent, Dr. Kelli Ward, and would likely lose in a general election against whoever wins their primaries. His whining about Trump is just to cover for the fact that he has lost support in Arizona. Nobody with an 18% approval rating is going to win an election.

So why was Flake so unpopular? Well criticizing Trump was a large part of it. Arizona went for Trump by about 5 points and Trump is reasonable popular there. Trump's got a lot of people that voted for him and I doubt many of them appreciated Flake's criticism against him. I'm not from Arizona but I despised Flake and I am very happy that he isn't going to be a senator anymore, even if it means that the Democrats somehow win in Arizona. He was that bad. 

I think others were upset that Flake was trying to pick a fight with Trump instead of actually doing his job. Whatever you think of Trump, he is the leader of the GOP and the party is stuck with him until 2020 at the very least, with a 2024 date being likely as well. Trying to divide the party in a purity spiral over something as pointless as "tone" is not going to go over well with people that think "my party right or wrong". There are a lot of Republicans out there that do think that Trump should keep off of twitter and act like a more traditional president, but they won't tolerate someone from their side undermining the party by fighting Trump over it. The recognize that despite the perceived faults with Trump, he's not the enemy. The Democrats are and Flake was helping them and hurting the GOP with his attacks on Trump.

Of course, part of his unpopularity is the general incompetence of the Senate GOP. The Senate has failed to pass the Obamacare repeal and is now floundering on tax reform. They have also failed to fund Trump's wall and won't take action on supporting gun rights. Indeed, they haven't accomplish much of anything. Had Flake and the senate GOP actually accomplished, well, ANYTHING, Flake might have been popular enough to run and have his criticism taken seriously. 

I do think that this is a wider rejection for the anti-Trump wing of the GOP. Flake isn't the only GOP senator that is retiring because he couldn't win an election. Bob Corker, another anti-Trump Republican is also on the way out for similar reasons. He can't win against Trump. And anti-Trump GOP leadership, like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are also hugely unpopular. 

Though the conventional wisdom is that congress gets weaker for the incumbent party during midterm elections, I do think that Trump is going to be stronger after the election. Not only is he going to lose some of his most powerful and outspoken opponents to retirements, the Democrats have more seats to defend than the Republicans.

And I think that there is a chance that Flake and Corker are just the first to fall. Steve Bannon, former White House adviser and Breitbart editor said that there will be primary challenges for all GOP senators up for election with the sole exception being Ted Cruz. I don't know how successful that effort will be, the best chances of victory were Flake and Corker, but they are both down and out. However, Bannon and Breitbart were able to push Roy Moore over incumbent Luther Strange in Alabama. Still, it shows that there is strong resistance to the anti-Trump forces in the Senate. 

I think this should be a huge warning to anyone in the GOP that wants to criticize Trump. Do so at your own peril as doing so will cause your polls to collapse and either force you into retirement or embarrass you during the primaries. Heed the lessons of Flake and Corker. Fall in line or get kicked out of congress.