Republicans Will Pay The Piper For The Big Ugly Bill— Starting With California's David Valadao
- Howie Klein
- 16 hours ago
- 7 min read
Only An Inept DCCC Can Save Valadao— As It Did In 2022 & 2024
Passage of the incredibly unpopular Big Ugly Bill doesn’t change the topline outlook for the midterms: the House flips blue; the Senate map is too tough this cycle. For those who follow along more closely, it probably means the Republicans are slightly more vulnerable, enough to translate into a seat or two in the Senate and maybe a dozen or even two more House districts. So, the 120th Congress will look significantly different from the 119th. The Senate will be close enough for a series of surprises and the House will go from being led by a worse than mediocre Republican speaker to a worse than mediocre Democratic speaker. And the House will be able to investigate the regime, impeach Trump and prevent him from passing anything. The Senate will be able to continue protecting him.
On Sunday, Lisa Kashinsky, Andrew Howard and Elena Schneider played prognostication, with some nervous nellies “warning that slashing spending on Medicaid and food assistance will cost the party seats in the midterms— threatening their razor-thin House majority— by kicking millions of Americans off safety-net programs. ‘You would be foolish not to worry about it,’ Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) said in a brief interview. ‘If you don’t keep the voters right with you, you’re going to awaken to a bad, bad, bad day.’ Justice voted for the megabill last week, despite his concerns over some of its Medicaid provisions— and after warning Republicans ‘cannot cut into the bone.’ Steep cuts, he said, would cost the GOP voters and lead the party to ‘awaken to [being in the] minority.’” Justice, a billionaire and former Democrap, isn’t up for reelection next year. His colleague Shelley Moore Capito is. She has two MAGA primary opponents and no Democrat running is the state where Trump beat Kamala better than two to one— 533,556 (69.97%) to 214,309 (28.10%).
If the anti-red wave is strong enough, the most likely Senate flips from red to blue are in Maine and North Carolina, with chances in Iowa and Texas. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Georgia and possibly even Michigan could flip in the opposite direction.
Thom Tillis came to the conclusion he would lose over the Medicaid cuts and abounded that he isn’t running for reelection. Kashinsky, Howard and Schneider reported that he had “warned his party that slashing Medicaid could become a political albatross, like the Affordable Care Act was for Democrats during Barack Obama’s presidency… [MAGA Mike] “privately cautioned that the deeper cuts the Senate passed could cost him his slim majority next year, though he ultimately whipped his members to support the changes. Several Republicans said the cuts would make the bill a tougher sell to their voters. Adding to the GOP angst: Democrats are preparing to weaponize the bill as they did Republicans’ failed efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017. That 2018 midterm election led to a GOP wipeout in the House, with the party losing 40 seats, including some districts in Trump-leaning territory. Democrats are planning to again hitch vulnerable Republicans to the cuts to social safety-net programs.
Republicans are walking a tightrope as they return to their districts to start selling the sweeping policy package. They’re going to lean into the megabill’s popular provisions, like eliminating taxes on tips, while trying to escape unpopular reductions to safety-net programs. The final bill slashes spending by $1.7 trillion.
Voters broadly dislike the megabill; some recent polling shows a 2-to-1 margin of disapproval, according to surveys conducted by Quinnipiac University, the Washington Post, Pew Research and Fox News. Nearly half of voters want more federal funding for Medicaid, while just 10 percent want less, according to Quinnipiac.
“What we know from past elections is that messing with people’s healthcare coverage is very problematic for politicians. And it has, in the past, yielded some very, very negative views about the people who supported it,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
Meanwhile Democrats are rushing to capitalize on the controversy and plan to make it a centerpiece of their midterm messaging.
… Their campaign arms and allied super PACs have already released several rounds of ads hammering vulnerable Republicans and say they plan to keep up the pace.
Republicans are trying to figure out how to fight back.
Their early salvos have focused on painting Democrats as supportive of tax hikes since they opposed a bill that would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and eliminate federal taxes on tips and overtime. Republicans also argue they’re protecting the “most vulnerable” Medicaid recipients by removing undocumented immigrants and others they say shouldn’t have access to the program anyway.
But in a tacit acknowledgment of the potential electoral fallout, some Republicans have pledged to try to reverse provisions such as the provider tax drawdown before they take effect in 2028.
… Another potential security blanket for the GOP: Many Americans at risk of steep Medicaid cuts reside in deep-red swaths of the country that are unlikely to turn blue next year. But there are also high percentages of Medicaid enrollees in some GOP-held swing districts Democrats are itching to flip.
… Another top Democratic target, Rep. David Valadao (R-CA), voted in favor of the bill despite expressing “several concerns” with the stricter limits on provider taxes and state-directed payments that he unsuccessfully lobbied Senate Majority Leaders John Thune not to include.
Valadao lost his seat in Democrats’ health-care-fueled 2018 wave, when liberal groups successfully yoked him to GOP efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and won it back in 2020. Now those groups are running the same playbook in his Central Valley district that enrolls nearly two-thirds of his constituents in Medicaid— the highest percentage in the GOP conference.
Valadao, who fought for months to rein in some of the changes to the program, sought to justify his vote in a statement Thursday by arguing “it does preserve the Medicaid program for its intended recipients” and includes a $50 billion stabilization fund to offset harm to rural hospitals.
New York Rep. Mike Lawler, whose lower-Hudson Valley district has more than 200,000 people enrolled in Medicaid, said in a brief interview that he “fought extensively to make sure that there were not draconian changes to Medicaid” and that lawmakers will have time to address some of the others before they take effect.
“At the end of the day, this is about strengthening the program,” he said. As for electoral consequences: “You just tell people what’s actually in the bill, as opposed to what the Democrats have been trying to fearmonger on.”
But Democrats are confident that “putting shine on a turd” will not work, said Ian Russell, a consultant who served as the political director of Democrats’ House campaign arm in 2014 and 2016.
“Republicans are running back their 2018 playbook,” said CJ Warnke, communications director for House Majority PAC, the Democratic leadership-aligned super PAC. “And it’s once again going to cost them the majority.”
Reporting for the L.A. Times, Seema Mehta noted that Valadao, who was already in jeopardy, “put his political future in deeper peril this week by voting in favor of legislation that slashes the Medicaid coverage essential to roughly two-thirds of his constituents.” About half a million of his constituents need Medicaid funding for their healthcare, more than in any other district in the state. “Democrats vowed to use Valadao’s vote to oust him from office in the 2026 election. His district, which includes swaths of Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, is among the most competitive in the nation… ‘David Valadao just sealed his fate by voting for a bill that will rip health care away from tens of thousands in his district, where more than two-thirds of his constituents rely on the very program he’s gutting,’ Anna Elsasser, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement. ‘He lied to their faces, and then tried to sweep it under the rug. We all knew he’d fold when it mattered most. It’s spineless, it’s dishonest, and next November, it will cost him his seat.’”
Ironically, the DCCC has been saving Valadao by recruiting wretched conservative candidates to run against him— and they’re up to the same bullshit this cycle, although this cycle, it looks like local progressive Randy Villegas could well defeat the DCCC another candidate and then Valadao. You can give Villegas a hand here.
Mehta wrote that “A billboard proclaiming ‘David Valadao Lied. He voted to gut Medi-Cal, giving CEOs a tax break. We’ll pay with our lives’ was erected Thursday near State Route 99 in Valadao’s district by Fight for Our Health, a nonprofit coalition of health, labor, senior, disability and other groups.”
Democrats also plan on targeting Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) for their support of the bill. Hundreds of protesters descended Tuesday on Kim’s Anaheim field office to urge the congresswoman to oppose the legislation.
… Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday told reporters that Valadao should leave office if he votes for the bill.
“It’s the ultimate betrayal,” he said during a news conference in Burbank. “This is one of the most calamitous and devastating bills of our lifetime.”
Newsom predicted that the bill’s passage would mean hospital closures, loss of access to healthcare and food stamps for Californians, and higher student loans.
Valadao “might as well resign early and I can call a special election, if he supports it,” the governor said.
“What basis do you have of trust in your own district if you would betray your own constituency to such an extraordinary, extraordinary degree. It’s one of the poorest districts in the country.”
Punchbowl reported this morning that 85% of top Capitol Hill staffers— including 73% of Republicans— say the reconciliation bill’s cuts to Medicaid will hurt Republicans in the midterms. Three quarters of the staffers say cuts to food stamps will also help the Democrats win congressional seats.
