Thread by @jbarro

I am genuinely unsure how the efforts to make MTG the face of the GOP (sure to be heartily assisted by MTG) will play in the midterms.

https://twitter.com/AlexThomas/status/1355558314411749381

Without getting into the relative *merits*, this is something the parties do a lot in campaigns — highlighting the most extreme and unappealing personalities on the other side — and I generally think it has less effect than you’d expect.

Like we heard this whole narrative about how AOC and messaging about defunding the police/bail reform was a huge problem in suburban New York. But then Biden significantly improved on Hillary’s margin and Dems gained seats in the state senate.

Obviously MTG is a crazy person and AOC is not. But anti-AOC messaging has a clear story about how AOC is supposed to affect *you*. For most persuadable or weakly-attached voters, the story about why it matters that MTG is a conspiracy theorist is one more step removed.

To be clear, I think this is a real problem: some of the most alarming aspects about Trump were essentially electorally irrelevant.

Sure. But she’ll barely be on any ballots. Can you convince people not to vote for other Republicans because of her, a backbencher?

https://mobile.twitter.com/billybobdavinci/status/1355679453259706370

(Also I think the main way MTG helped lose the GA senate races was by playing into conspiracy theories that suppressed GOP turnout...)