The establishment scored huge victories in primary races Tuesday. Their next potential target: Rep. Justin Amash.
Business groups, executives in Michigan and even some of his fellow home state Republicans are abandoning the hard-line tea party conservative, famous in Washington for voting “no” on bills as wide ranging as the debt ceiling to defense funding.
Members of the Meijers family, owners of the massive Midwest supermarket chain, are all in behind Brian Ellis, Amash’s Republican primary challenger. As are the political arms of Home Depot, Dow Chemical and the International Franchise Association.
The primary race is in the beginning stages of what could be an epic throwdown in August between the business community, usually reluctant to play in a Republican primary, and big conservative outsiders, including the Koch brothers and the Club for Growth, who are dumping money into Amash’s campaign.
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Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said Amash isn’t a “serious member of Congress,” and added “this is someone here playing games, and trying to be on the opposite side of Republicans.” Nunes gave his opponent $5,000.
Nunes said his dealings with Amash on a water bill critical to California turned him off.
“He’s been leading the charge and not telling the truth about [NSA surveillance policies],” Nunes said in an interview. “He’s been fanning the flames, and it gets to the point where my assessment is this is a guy willing to work with San Francisco Democrats to protect bait fish, and at the same time he’s Al Qaeda’s best friend in the Congress.”
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