DOUG DUCEY'S NEW CASTING TRY-OUTS : REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS GATHER IN PHOENIX TO PLAN GOP MIDTERM ELECTION COMEBACK

Here in Arizona this local 3-day event didn't get much gaggle when the national conversation was all about the censure of AZ Congressman Paul Gosar.

Extracts from a longer report are inserted below - please read more at the source for details. 

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey speaks to reporters while Virginia Gov.elect Glen Youngkin, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Kim Reynolds and Pete Ricketts, of Nebraska, listen at the Republican Governors Association meeting on Wednesday. | Jonathan J. Cooper/AP Photo

At governors’ gathering, Republicans fawn over the new guy

Virginia’s governor-elect played a starring role at the RGA’s annual conference but the former president was never far from mind.

POLITICO

Virginia’s governor-elect played a starring role at the RGA’s annual conference but the former president was never far from mind.

PHOENIX — They don’t agree on every policy, but the nation’s Republican governors were in universal agreement during their three-day meeting here: Glenn Youngkin delivered a blueprint for the GOP’s midterm comeback.

At the Republican Governors Association’s annual conference, Virginia’s governor-elect played a starring role as 20 governors and hundreds of GOP political professionals and donors celebrated his recent victory, pointing to him as a conservative exemplar — the guy who figured out how to win support from Donald Trump’s followers while keeping the polarizing former president at arm’s length.

[. . .]

Youngkin was also showcased at the only two publicly broadcast events — a panel about Washington, D.C., dysfunction and an RGA press conference. His victory, and the lessons it could hold for Republicans in the midterms, were the subject of a GOP study and roundtable discussion from pollsters who surveyed voter attitudes after the Virginia race.

“All the momentum is on our side, and Glenn’s race was the canary in the coal mine,” said Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, an anti-Trump Republican who ranks as one of the most popular governors in the nation.

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, the RGA co-chair for 2022, agreed.

“The Glenn Youngkin race provides a roadmap for Republicans in blue states and swing states. His win will define a new generation of Republican leadership and is a huge boost nationally going into 2022. This will be the most important election cycle in more than a decade for our party,” Ricketts said.

...For the most part, when the governors spoke about Trump this week, it was only after media prompting. Some bluntly said it’s time for the party to move on from the former president’s baseless claims of election fraud. Most of the public remarks, however, focused on presenting the states as laboratories of conservative ideas, and casting the midterm elections as a referendum on the Biden administration and progressive “wokeness. . ."