Donald Trump will doubtless be gratified that Greg Gianforte won the special election in Montana. Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, might secretly have been hoping that he lost.
Gianforte was charged on Wednesday night with assaulting Ben Jacobs, a Guardian reporter attempting to interview him. If he had gone on to lose, House Republicans could have dismissed him as a candidate gone rogue and cautioned against reading too much into the result on a national level.
As it is, the party will now have to decide whether to embrace, accommodate or ostracise a man who made himself the personification of Trump’s media-baiting, violence-inciting campaign rhetoric. The legal saga will put a dark cloud over him and his movements on Capitol Hill are likely to receive outsized and negative coverage. In short, he is a liability adding to Ryan’s already considerable burden.
“This is going to be another of those moral tests for the Republican party,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and commentator. “It should be an easy one for them to say there is no place for violence against reporters.”
In normal politics, Skyes added, the incident would have been universally condemned. But, since the ascent of Trump, the compass has moved. “It’s hard to overstate the cynicism we’ve seen from Republicans in Washington who will stop at nothing when votes are involved. How far down the road are Republicans willing to go?”
On Thursday, Ryan said that what occurred was “wrong and should not happen” and Gianforte should apologise. But he stopped short of calling for Gianforte to quit the race. The questions will keep coming, however, when Gianforte takes his seat in the House.
For months it was feared that Trump had created an atmosphere in which a journalist might be physically attacked. Now it has happened and, in most political contexts, such an action would be instantly disqualifying; three of Montana’s biggest newspapers pulled their endorsements of Gianforte.
But the millionaire tech entrepreneur has aligned himself with Trump and may be untouchable for as long as the president’s populist base remains loyal. Trump’s cheerleaders have been ready to defend or even champion Gianforte, suggesting that he could prove a thorn in Ryan’s side.
Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman from Colorado, said: “They’ll be so happy he’s been able to get elected I doubt there’ll be any issue in the Congress about it. I don’t see anything happening on that score.”
He denied that Gianforte’s “body slam” of a journalist should be disqualifying, adding: “I certainly wanted to many times but I managed to restrain myself.”
The Montana election was widely seen as a referendum on Trump, whose supporters will see Gianforte’s win as a vindication. It could sow yet more division on what might once have been a bipartisan issue. Criticism from Democrats will make Republicans even more determined to dig in and rally around him. A press release from Gianforte’s camp specifically branded Jacobs a “liberal” journalist, while House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, called Gianforte “a wannabe Trump”.
Republican pollster and consultant Frank Luntz said: “I wonder how Republicans would’ve responded if it was a Democrat in question. I’ve been saying for months that there is a poison in American politics that will destroy everyone. I’m afraid it’s happening.”
