Michigan Republicans have a new Senate candidate. The NRSC already hates him

Former Rep. Peter Meijer announced Monday that he'd seek the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, but both the NRSC and Michigan Republican Party responded to the news by expressing utter contempt for their new candidate.

"Peter Meijer isn't viable in a primary election," declared NRSC Executive Director Jason Thielman, "and there's worry that if Meijer were nominated, the base would not be enthused in the general election." Meijer, who was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, narrowly lost renomination last year to a Trump-backed foe, John Gibbs; Gibbs, in turn, badly lost the general election for the Grand Rapids-based 3rd District to Democrat Hillary Scholten.

While Republicans almost certainly would have been better off if Meijer, who first won office in 2020 by beating Scholten in a more conservative version of the 3rd, had prevailed against Gibbs, Thielman isn't the only one arguing he'd demoralize Republicans if he were to win the August primary. An unnamed Republican told Politico that internal polls showed Meijer considerably more popular with Democrats than with GOP voters, though no one has released any actual data to that effect.