Faith-Based Challenges Show a New Rift in the GOP

For political analysts, the lesson in Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman's loss this month in a special congressional election in New York is obvious: The right overreached. After pressuring Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava out of the race with charges that she was too liberal, conservative activists watched New York's 23rd District go to a Democrat for the first time in more than a century. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who had endorsed Scozzafava and warned Republicans not to "purge the party of anybody who doesn't agree with us 100 percent," appeared to be vindicated.

And yet many conservative activists are encouraged by the outcome of the race, which saw Hoffman take 46 percent of the vote. "The lesson of New York 23 is that if the Republican Party nominates people who are Republicans in name only, they are going to meet conservative opposition," says Tom Minnery, senior vice president of Focus on the Family Action, a conservative evangelical group. "If Scozzafava had never been nominated, the Republicans would have won." Even Gingrich has renounced Scozzafava, calling her nomination a mistake.

With an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and support from Family Research Council Action and Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, conservative Christians were among Hoffman's most active backers, rejecting Scozzofava over her support for abortion rights and gay marriage. Energized in part by their experience in New York, conservative faith-based activists are now poised to support challengers over establishment Republicans in perhaps a dozen or more GOP primaries next year, in races stretching from Florida to California. "You're going to see the largest number of competitive Republican primaries since the 1992-to-1994 period," says Reed, the former Christian Coalition chief. "It's a sign of a healthy movement."

But some GOP leaders worry that the growing number of contests between party-backed figures and conservative challengers will create fissures at a time when Republicans are trying to unify and rebuild. That, they fear, could pave the way for more Democratic wins. Last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee called a meeting with activists on the right, including religious conservatives, to discuss the lessons of New York 23. "Any time you have a loss like we did in 2008, there's a debate about how the party should go forward," says David Winston, the pollster for congressional Republicans. "But New York 23 showed that that debate could be poisonous."

The ongoing tensions are on clearest display in Florida, where Gov. Charlie Crist is facing the more conservative Marco Rubio, a former Florida House speaker, in the primary for an open U.S. Senate seat. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP's Senate campaign arm, has endorsed Crist, while Rubio is pitching himself as the grass roots' choice. "The conservatives are the ones being purged from the party," says Rubio, who claims the national senatorial committee has scared off potential donors, though the group denies it.

The contest is focused on economic issues like taxes and the wisdom of the federal stimulus package, but Rubio is relying heavily on support from religious conservatives who are unhappy with Crist's reticence on hot-button social issues. Crist was mostly quiet on last year's successful Florida ballot initiative to ban gay marriage. He calls himself "pro-life" but opposes overturning Roe v. Wade. "You can't be pro-life if you don't think Roe should be overturned," says Rubio. "Almost everybody is personally pro-life, but this is about public policy." With the primary nine months off, Rubio has snagged an endorsement from Family Research Council Action and hopes it will bring support from religious conservatives nationwide.

A similar battle is underway in California, where former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is fighting state legislator Chuck DeVore for the party's nomination for U.S. Senate. An adviser to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, Fiorina is receiving fundraising support from McCain and other establishment types. DeVore hails from Orange County, a bastion of conservative Christian activism and is a fixture on the tea party circuit, whose economic conservatives are helping fuel bids to take on establishment candidates.

In Utah, meanwhile, a longtime "pro-family" activist endorsed by Christian right icon Phyllis Schlafly is among the conservatives running against Republican Sen. Bob Bennett. Cherilyn Eagar says her state's tradition of picking nominees by convention makes it easier for her to benefit from the support of activists, including religious conservatives. "Bennett's version of national healthcare had a provision requiring insurance companies to supply abortions," she says. "I find that reprehensible in a state that is highly pro-life."

Beyond confronting the Republican establishment, religious activists point out that they helped deliver last week's Republican gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey. In Virginia, white evangelicals supplied nearly half of Governor-elect Bob McDonnell's votes. New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie is the first antiabortion chief executive to be elected in the state in at least 25 years. He survived a conservative primary opponent and went on to get Family Research Council Action's endorsement, a reminder that not every intraparty fight has to end like the one in New York's 23rd did.

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Corrected on 12/21/09: An earlier version of this article misstated California U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina's abortion position. She opposes abortion rights.