(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Some three-dozen former lawmakers are urging fellow Democrats to stop trying to affect the outcomes of Republican primaries.
In an open letter, several Democrats — including former House Majority Leader Dick Gephard of Missouri, former U.S. Senator and Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun and former Illinois Congressman Jerry Costello — say the party should stop meddling in Republican contests.
Elmhurst University Political Science Professor Constance Mixon said Democrats all over the country are slyly boosting the candidacies of the most extreme — and, they feel, beatable — Republicans.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and his supporters, for example, helped boost the profile of conservative Republican Darren Bailey, who won his gubernatorial primary.
One problem is, Mixon said, it doesn’t always work. Note the 2016 election, when Hillary Clinton supporters thought Donald Trump would be easy to beat.
Mixon said there’s danger in elevating election deniers, too. She said it’s a bad idea politically and morally and can “damage our democracy.”
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