President Richard Nixon famously complained that Republican candidates were expected to show how conservative they were in GOP primaries only to feel obligated to make a dramatic run for the center in the general election. The irony is that in 2022, GOP primaries are way to the right of where they were in Nixon's day; Republicans who were considered arch-conservative during the 1960s and 1970s would be too far to the left for today's far-right MAGA movement.
Nonetheless, one does see, in 2022, a similar pivot among some Republicans in swing states and swing districts; now that they're in the general election, they are trying to downplay how pro-Donald Trump and anti-abortion they were in their primaries. And according to the Daily Beast's Sam Brodey, it's no coincidence that pro-MAGA and anti-abortion messages have disappeared from their websites.
