He defied Trump and still survived a GOP primary

The Conversation with Dasha Burns

POLITICO

News, Government, Politics

4.0 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week in the GOP primary for South Dakota’s at-large district, Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) defeated a challenger from his right who claimed he wasn’t aligned closely enough with former President Donald Trump, even though Johnson agrees with Trump on many policies. Johnson’s vote for a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attacks and his support for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) to remain in House Leadership was cited as proof he is not an ally of the former president. Johnson also faced more than $500,000 in spending against him from Drain the DC Swamp PAC. He tells Ryan Lizza that South Dakotans like Trump – but they also like Dusty Johnson. Find out how he overcame the challenges faced from defying Trump and how he survived to win the Republican nomination on this week’s episode of Playbook Deep Dive. Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Rep. Dusty Johnson is the congressman at-large for South Dakota.Afra Abdullah is an associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is a producer for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Beware. Swapper Dusty Johnson denies that the Communist stole the election from President Trump.
0:07.0	That's an ad from a pro-Trump pack called Drain the DC Swamp that ran against South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson during his Republican primary campaign, which was decided on Tuesday.
0:19.0	You remember that ad?
0:21.0	Oh, do I ever? I mean, it was only, you know, $300,000 put behind that ad.
0:27.0	Just like Trump, the pack didn't like that representative Dusty Johnson certified the 2020 election results.
0:33.0	Dusty Johnson says Biden won and attended Biden's inauguration.
0:37.0	And on top of that, they didn't like that he wanted an independent investigation of the January 6th riot.
0:43.0	Dusty Johnson voted to investigate President Trump and patriotic Americans who attended the January 6th Trump rally.
0:51.0	As the ad makes clear, Johnson had made Trump's hit list.
0:56.0	There are a bunch of ways to get on it. Don't believe in election fraud, you're on the list.
1:01.0	Voted for impeachment? Obviously, you're on the list.
1:05.0	When the primary season started this year, being on the list seemed like a sure way to lose your seat in Congress.
1:13.0	But a lot of Republicans are learning how to survive the former president's wrath.
1:20.0	Tuesday was a primary day in seven states.
1:23.0	And it was a test of a certain subset of House members on the hit list.
1:28.0	35 House Republicans voted for the January 6th Commission.
1:32.0	And of those, five of them had a primary on June 7th.
1:36.0	And all five of them survived, including Dusty Johnson.
1:41.0	And he won by a lot.
1:44.0	The reason I get elected, and with primary margins of 20 points and 50 points and 20 points,
1:53.0	is because I am not some sort of alien to the South Dakota electorate who's got to convince them that they have to accept my views.
2:02.0	He faced state representative Taffy Howard, who like her allies in the D.C. Swamp Pack.
	...

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