GRAND RAPIDS, MI — US Rep. Peter Meijer on Sunday said a Democratic ad campaign to boost support for John Gibbs in the Republican primary for a West Michigan congressional seat could backfire “in a spectacular way” in the November election.
“It’s a dangerous strategy,” Meijer said, speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation. “Where President Biden is in his approval of him is so in the gutter… it is easy to see that strategy backfiring in a spectacular way, which is all the more reason why we should not be embracing the zero-sum idea of politics .”
The first-term congressman, who was targeted for voting to impeach former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, was defeated by Gibbs 52% to 48%.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $435,000 in the final stretch of the Republican primary campaign on an advertisement that, while framed as an attack on Gibbs, sought to boost his credentials among voters who support Trump.
The ad highlighted Gibbs’ endorsement by Trump, his service in the Trump administration, and said Gibbs would support policies such as “crack down on immigration” and a pro “patriotic” education in K-12 schools. The idea behind the ad, from Democrats’ perspective, was that Gibbs would be easier to beat than Meijer in the November general election.
Gibbs, a former political commentator who worked in the Trump administration, will now face Democrat Hillary Scholten in the general election for Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District. The district, which was redrawn last year, includes portions of Kent, Ottawa and Muskegon counties.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has said the race between Gibbs and Scholten leans Democratic, but Gibbs has said he can win over Meijer’s supporters and keep the district in Republican hands. Gibbs denies the results of the 2020 election.
On Sunday, Meijer took responsibility for being defeated by Gibbs. However, he said he faced an extra hurdle when the DCCC released its ad to boost Gibbs, who grew up near Lansing and didn’t move to West Michigan until launching his campaign last year.
“So, we had a scenario where not only did I have the former president aligned against me, but in a rare showing of bipartisan unity, Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic Campaign Committee, also united to try to knock me off the ballot,” Meijer said.
Ultimately, the impact of the DCCC’s advertisement is “unknowable,” Meijer told host Margaret Brennan.
But, he added, “The fact that we have the establishment left and the extreme right locking arms in common cause paints a very telling picture of where our politics are in 2022.”
Related: Trump impeachment vote followed Congressman Peter Meijer to election day
In other remarks, Meijer said his accomplishments in office have gotten “lost” in the current political environment. He mentioned, for example, that he was “proud that our office is on track to set a record for the most number of bills signed into law by a freshman.”
“That those type of accomplishments get lost in our current personality politics, get lost in a broader sense…I think that is one of the fundamental challenges that we have as a country, and that is, frankly, frustrating Michigan families,” he said .
“We are dealing with a politics that does not reward substance that does not reward, you know, reality.”
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