In California, a Republican opponent of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is calling him a “hypocrite” on supporting Trump, as a super PAC runs digital ads using an old tape of Rohrabacher calling Trump “a mean nasty SOB.” | Saul Loeb/Getty Images Trump litmus test hits House GOP primaries Past criticisms of Trump are surfacing in California and Texas as primary season heats up.

For years, opposing President Barack Obama was among the top issues in Republican primaries. Now, the contests hinge on supporting — or opposing — President Donald Trump.

In California, a Republican opponent of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is calling him a “hypocrite” on supporting Trump, as a super PAC runs digital ads using an old tape of Rohrabacher calling Trump “a mean nasty SOB.” A Texas Republican in a runoff for an open, GOP-heavy seat is citing his opponent’s old Facebook posts criticizing Trump. And in Indiana, Republican front-runner Mike Braun has given Rep. Todd Rokita a Trump-style nickname, “Todd the Fraud,” for running as a Trump supporter after previously criticizing the president.


Hundreds of Republican primaries are just ahead on the 2018 calendar, and after watching Trump play a huge role in special primaries last year, GOP candidates have seen the power of dredging up an opponent’s old comments opposing the president before he was the party standard bearer. It proved disastrous for GOP Rep. Mo Brooks’ Senate campaign in Alabama, where super PACs like Senate Leadership Fund hammered his past statements on Trump and forced him into a third-place finish. And other candidates think it could be a poison pill for their opponents, too.

“No other person, group or issue has the gravitational pull on Republican primary voters that Donald Trump commands,” Senate Leadership Fund president Steven Law wrote in a September 2017 memo, after the Alabama primary. “Republican voters are becoming more attached to Trump than they are to the party,” Law continued, citing an NBC News poll that found 58 percent of Republicans consider themselves Trump supporters to 38 percent who see themselves as GOP party supporters.

In California, Rohrabacher and GOP opponent Scott Baugh are trading shots over which one is the “Never Trumper.” Rohrabacher’s campaign sent mailers to primary voters that accused Baugh of being “supported by ‘Never Trumpers.’”

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Baugh called that “hypocritical,” pointing to a recent City News Service story, which reported that Rohrabacher had been caught on tape at a March 2016 fundraiser, weighing in on the presidential primary: “I thought I was going to support Donald Trump, but I can’t support a man who is a mean, nasty SOB.”

An anti-Rohrabacher super PAC, New OC Future, has also picked up on the tape, turning it into a digital ad.

Rohrabacher spokesman Greg Blair said in a statement that the super PAC’s existence was evidence “that Baugh is the candidate of special interests, Never Trumpers, and the pro-amnesty lobby.”

Meanwhile, in Texas, a super PAC called Conservative Results Matter is going after Republican Dan Crenshaw, calling him an “anti-Trump liberal,” in the two-way GOP runoff to replace retiring Texas Rep. Ted Poe.

“‘Insane, hateful, idiot.’ These are the words so-called Republican Dan Crenshaw used to describe President Trump,” the narrator says in a new TV ad from the super PAC. “Crenshaw called Trump an ‘idiot.’”

The attack mirrors a Facebook post by Crenshaw’s runoff opponent, state Rep. Kevin Roberts, which cites an old Facebook post of Crenshaw’s and says Crenshaw “openly [attacked] Donald Trump as an ‘idiot,’ ‘insane,’ and ‘ignorant.’”

Crenshaw, in response to the ad, called it a “a desperate strategy,” adding that the comments cited were “taken out of context.” Crenshaw said he posted an “aggressive defense of Christianity” on Facebook in 2015, after Trump made comments about a religious litmus test.

“I’ve always supported President Trump,” Crenshaw said. “I didn’t always support candidate Trump.”

All three candidates running for Senate in Indiana want to claim Trump as their own. But Braun went after Rokita — who donned a “Make America Great Again” hat in his TV ads — as “Todd the Fraud” on Trump

“‘Todd the Fraud’ says he supports the president, but he attacked President Trump and called him ‘vulgar,’” says the narrator of Braun’s ad. “And get this, President Trump’s campaign reprimanded ‘Todd the Fraud’ for lying. Wow.”

A Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the delicate business of aligning candidates’ current and past views on Trump, advised candidates to give “a credible explanation for their past criticism,” as they “will do better in elections than people who pretend to have election year conversions.”

“Changing your tune on something like that, when there’s demonstrable evidence to the contrary, makes you seem more like a politician who will do anything to get elected,” the Republican strategist said.