George Logan veers far right. Speaker Mike Johnson to headline March 16th fundraiser.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is expected to appear at a top dollar March 16th campaign fundraising event for Republican George Logan’s 5th CD rematch with incumbent Democrat Jahana Hayes, Daily Ructions has learned.
The Wolcott Democrat defeated Logan by fewer than 2,000 votes. Logan is a top prospect for House Republicans seeking to hold on to their tenuous majority in the House. Between announcing his candidacy in October and December 31st, Logan raised more than $420,000. Representative James Comer (R-Kentucky), a leader in the rickety House Republican attempt to impeach President Joseph Biden, was the star attraction this week at a Greenwich fundraiser for Logan hosted by Republican National Committee member Leora Levy.
The Logan campaign is scrambling to put together an event host committee of donors with generous friends. Logan campaign fundraiser Lauren Casper hopes to book the tony Hartford Golf Club in West Hartford as the venue.
Johnson was a leading House Republican in the failed crusade to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Louisiana Republican rejects the term “election denier” to describe him. Earlier this month, Johnson proclaimed a comprehensive immigration reform and foreign aid proposal “dead on arrival” in the House.
Johnson’s views on many issues may go down well in Louisiana but are considered extreme in Connecticut. Vanity Fair reported last year:
On the abortion front, CNN’s KFILE reports that in 2022—as in just last year—Johnson said reproductive freedom in the US was “truly an American holocaust,” adding: “The reality is that Planned Parenthood and all these big abortion (providers), they set up their clinics in inner cities. They regard these people as easy prey. I mean, it’s true.” The same year, he said he was “grateful to be from Louisiana, one of the dozen states or so that has a trigger law that will automatically become an abortion-free state, pro-life,” referring to the law on the books since 2006 that banned abortion, with no exceptions, upon Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Logan is aligning himself with these views. In little more than two weeks, Logan will be accepting the endorsement and assistance of a Republican who has blocked assistance to the tens of millions of Ukrainians fighting for their free nation’s existence against a Russian invasion.
Logan fundraiser Lauren Casper has deep ties in the Trump wing of the Republican Party. She told Esquire magazine in a 2016 profile of “Donald Trump Super Fans” :
“I get why you think he’s an egomaniac,” she says. “I mean I support him but I still get the joke.” She loves all the usual things about Trump — how unpolished he is, how off the cuff. She loves how he puts America first, and how terrorism and immigration are at the top of his agenda. And she likes how he’s changing the GOP. “We need to rebrand. Be nice to gays and forget Roe versus Wade [The Supreme Court ruling that made abortion a right], it’s never going to be repealed. Trump’s doing all those things.”
Logan has immersed himself in this world, though he may not be eager to acknowledge it to voters in the district that runs from his new hometown of Meriden to New York border.
Published February 28, 2024.