Arizona GOP Excommunicates Rusty Bowers After His Jan. 6 Committee Testimony on Trump’s Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election

The Arizona GOP Executive Committee declared Rusty Bowers “no longer a Republican in good standing” — as they announced their decision to censure the Arizona House Speaker.

Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward released a statement on Tuesday, saying Bowers “has lost the confidence of a majority of Republican Party leaders and his colleagues in the legislature in the State of Arizona,” therefore he is “unfit to serve the platform of the Republican Party and will of the voter of the Republican Party of Arizona.”

Ward calls for voters to “expel [Bowers] permanently from office” in Arizona’s primary election, and she cited a list of examples where Bowers worked with Democrats while diverging from Republicans.

“Therefore be it resolved, that the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Arizona hereby formally censures Representative Rusty Bowers and shall immediately cease any and all recognition and support of him as a member of the Republican Party for his inaction on election integrity,” the statement says.

Ward didn’t specifically reference Bowers’s appearance before the

Jan. 6 committee. But NBC affiliate KPNX notes that Bowers has been targeted by Ward and former President Donald Trump ever since he testified in Washington. Bowers, who voted for Trump, came into the media spotlight after speaking of how he refused to help the former president overturn the 2020 election by throwing out the state’s results after Joe Biden’s victory there.

Bowers has been frank since then about his political prospects, saying “it’s going to be a miracle” if he wins the primary in his pro-Trump district.