JACKSON, Miss. — Steve Bannon has a stark message to Republican incumbents he considers part of the establishment: "Nobody can run and hide."President Donald Trump's former chief strategist is promoting a field of potential primary challengers to take on disfavored Republicans in Congress and step up for open seats. Among the outsiders: a convicted felon, a perennial candidate linked to an environmental conspiracy theory and a Southern lawmaker known for provocative ethnic and racial comments.It's an insurgency that could imperil Republican majorities in the House and Senate. Bannon called it a "populist nationalist conservative revolt" in a speech to religious conservatives in Washington on Saturday.The emerging Bannon class of rabble-rousers shares limited ideological ties but a common intent to upend Washington and knock out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., standard-bearer of the establishment.So intent is Bannon on bringing down McConnell that he laid down this marker Saturday to some of the incumbents at risk of a challenge from his flank of the party: disavow McConnell, satisfy other conditions and possibly escape the wrath."Until that time," he said, the message to the elite is: "They're coming for you."The crop of outsider candidates unnerves a GOP that lost seats — and a shot at the Senate majority — in 2010 and 2012 with political novices and controversial nominees and fears a stinging repeat in 2018."The main thing that binds them together is a rejection of the Republican Party establishment, a rejection of the political elites, the financial elites and the media elites," said Andy Surabian, a former Bannon aide and senior adviser to the pro-Trump PAC Great America Alliance.Bannon told the religious conservatives that economic nationalism and anti-globalism, the same forces he said elected Trump, can overpower Republican elites."This is our war," he said.
Bannon: 'Nobody can run and hide'
Former chief strategist promoting GOP challengers


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