President Trump’s Nevada visit was supposed to send a pretty simple message: the primary is over, Republicans are united, and now it’s time to win in November.
For the most part, that’s exactly what happened. Candidates were recognized, Republicans were encouraged, and the party presented a united front heading into the general election.
But there was an obvious elephant in the room: some Republican nominees weren’t mentioned at all.
Andy Matthews wasn’t named. Drew Johnson wasn’t named. And most conspicuously, Cody Whipple — the Republican nominee for Nevada’s 4th Congressional District — didn’t even get so much as a “go get ’em.”
Any one omission could be dismissed as an oversight. Taken together, they’re noticeable. And when you look at who was embraced, Cody Whipple’s absence becomes even harder to understand.
President Trump didn’t merely acknowledge Carrie Buck. He endorsed her before the primary. That is certainly Trump’s prerogative, but Nevada Republicans have long memories. Buck spent a very public period at odds with Republican organizations during the bitter Clark County Republican Party fight that spilled into litigation and involved the state and county parties.
Apparently Republicans are capable of putting that history aside and moving forward.
Good. They should be.
But that’s precisely why the treatment of Cody Whipple is so puzzling.
If Republicans can put years of internal warfare behind them and enthusiastically embrace Carrie Buck as the nominee, surely they can extend the same courtesy to a Republican candidate who just overwhelmingly won his own primary.
And there’s another uncomfortable reality: CD1 isn’t obviously a better Republican pickup opportunity than CD4. Dina Titus has held that seat for years and the district remains decidedly difficult terrain for Republicans. Yet Buck received the presidential endorsement and party attention while Cody Whipple couldn’t even get his name mentioned.
Then there’s Marty O’Donnell in CD3. Trump endorsed him as well. Again, there is nothing wrong with that. CD3 is legitimately competitive. But Republicans have been trying to crack that district for years, and Susie Lee keeps surviving Republican challengers. O’Donnell himself has run before.
Cody Whipple, meanwhile, entered his first congressional race, won the Republican nomination decisively, and now faces Steven Horsford.
Nobody should pretend CD4 will be easy. Horsford is an incumbent with a significant financial and organizational advantage. But difficult and impossible are not synonyms.
Republicans have spent too many election cycles accepting conventional wisdom about which Nevada districts are “winnable.” Eventually that thinking becomes self-fulfilling. Candidates in difficult districts don’t receive resources because the district is difficult. They don’t receive attention because they don’t have resources. Then they lose, and everyone points to the loss as proof that withholding support was justified in the first place.
At some point, somebody has to actually try to expand the map.
The omissions of Andy Matthews and Drew Johnson deserve attention too. Matthews is a Republican statewide officeholder seeking reelection. Johnson has run before and is now another Republican nominee. Neither is some random candidate asking for attention.
But Cody’s omission still feels different.
Matthews already has statewide office and name recognition. Johnson has been through a major campaign before. Whipple is the congressional nominee who could have benefited enormously from the simplest presidential acknowledgment.
Nobody was asking President Trump to give Cody a ten-minute speech. Nobody needed him to declare CD4 the most important race in America.
It could have taken five seconds:
“Cody Whipple in the Fourth District — go get ’em.”
That’s it.
And that’s what makes the omission so strange.
Republicans cannot spend the general election preaching unity while practicing selective unity. If Carrie Buck’s history with Republican organizations can be put aside for November, good. If Republicans can rally around Marty O’Donnell, good. That is exactly what a functioning political party is supposed to do after a primary.
But apply that principle consistently.
Carrie Buck is the nominee. Marty O’Donnell is the nominee. Andy Matthews is the nominee. Drew Johnson is the nominee. And Cody Whipple is the nominee.
Republican voters made those decisions.
The RNC does not have to pretend every race has identical odds. They don’t have to spend identical amounts of money in every district. Campaigns require strategy, and resources are finite.
But acknowledging your nominees costs nothing.
Maybe Cody Whipple’s omission was simply an oversight. from the RNC, as they have a history of kind of ignoring the state I hope it was.
Because if Nevada Republicans actually want to expand the map instead of fighting over the same handful of seats every two years, candidates running uphill deserve encouragement too.
Republican voters gave Cody Whipple the nomination.
The least the rest of the Republican Party could give him was a “go get ’em.”