Disruptive conservative groups lose their punch with Trump in charge
By Paul Kane April 21 at 6:00 AM
Five years ago, a loose constellation of conservative groups upended Republican politics and sometimes appeared to call the shots for the GOP in Congress.
Now, those disrupter groups have been sidelined by the greatest disruption in American politics: President Trump. Republicans rarely talk about these outside groups, who have abandoned their past practice of challenging GOP incumbents in primaries. Almost no one pays attention to the conservative voting scorecards that proliferated a few years back.
“All of them are less powerful because we have the president, and that would have been true with any president, but it’s really President Trump that drives these sorts of things now,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a 15-year veteran who regularly supports leadership.
The president either “validates you or undermines you,” and conservative voters know which side their congressman is on, Cole said. “What most members care about is, what’s my scorecard with the president of the United States?”
The groups acknowledge that times are different, but they contend that the Trump administration is filled with allies who hear them out. “The combativeness is on the wane and the influence has gone up,” said Andy Roth, vice president of government affairs for the Club for Growth, a political shop backed by fiscal libertarians.
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