Votes On The Debt Ceiling Could Win Or Lose Elections
The 7th congressional district in northwest New Jersey was a swing district but relatively safe from a Democrat. The partisan swing was D+4. But the legislature didn’t like the Democratic incumbent, Tom Malinowski and wanted to bolster two other Democrats much more conservative than he is, Josh Gottheimer (whose district had a dead eveenpartisan lean) and Mike Sherrill (whose district had a D+1 lean). So they stole Democratic precincts from Malinowski and gave him some Republican ones instead, giving his district an R+3 lean, while making Gottheimer’s D+7 and Sherrill’s D+11, both nice and safe, for Democrats who vote anti-progressive as a matter of course.
And when the midterms rolled around, the results were predictable. The districts had all been won by Biden, Malinowski’s district with 51.1%, Gottheimer’s with 55.6% and Sherrill’s with 57.8%. But Malinowski lost with 48.6% (to Tom Kean’s 51.4%), while Gottheimer won 54.7-44.3% and Sherrill won 59.0-40.2%. Malinowski was one of the only Democratic incumbents to be defeated— and the only one with a defeat engineered by his own party. Now the New Jersey Democrats are wondering how to take back the seat. No one has announced yet but there are over a dozen potential candidates buzzing about it, including Malinowski (very unlikely), but also state Senate prez Nick Scutari (also not likely), Union County Sheriff Joe Cryan (pretty likely), Assemblyman Roy Freiman, progressive organizer Sue Altman, Hunterdon County Democratic chair Arlene Perez and former legislator Ray Lesniak.
Yesterday Tom Moran’s Star-Ledger editorial suggested how Kean could make himself pretty bullet-proof… but probably won’t. Remember, so far he has no MAGA primary challenger. They’re happy with him and have noticed that his talk about being a “moderate” is nothing but talk. His voting record is as far right as any MAGAt from Alabama or Texas. Moran wrote that he “has the chance of a lifetime to re-establish himself as a reasonable and moderate Republican, one who could win re-election in his swing district, and honor the legacy of his thoughtful father, the former governor. Call that the Liz Cheney option. Or not. He could choose Door Number Two, and lock arms with the fanatics who have taken the economy hostage and threatened to kill it unless everyone else yields to their strident demands. Call that the Marjorie Taylor Greene option.”
So far, Kean has been careful to keep one foot in each camp. The next few weeks will tell.
He voted for the House Republican bill, which puts him on the side of the crazies for now. If anything like that bill becomes law, it would likely spell the end of Kean’s career in Congress.
His suburban 7th District leans Republican, but its voters chose Joe Biden in 2020, along with Sen. Cory Booker. They won’t like a bill that was built by and for hard-core MAGA types from deep red states who see food stamps as socialism. The bill Kean supported would cripple the Gateway tunnel project, deny veterans health care, and call off the fight against climate change. It would cut child-care subsidies and college scholarships, while protecting rich tax cheats. That vote makes him vulnerable in 2024, even if it doesn’t become law.
But he has a path back to the mainstream. He’s a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, the centrist group that is offering a way out. Its plan would suspend the debt ceiling now to protect the economy, while establishing a bipartisan commission to map a careful plan towards debt reduction by the end of 2024, one that would automatically get an up-or-down vote in Congress, with no amendments to spoil the balance.
…It’s not clear whether Kean supported the Problem Solvers’ plan, since the caucus votes are private, and Kean’s office declined comment, as always. But it at least provides him with an off-ramp from MAGA land, should he choose it.
And if Biden’s meeting with Congressional leaders on Tuesday yields an agreement, it’s likely to look something like that— a suspension of the debt ceiling, twinned with a longer-term commitment to balance the books.
“It’s a sensible way out of this mess if you ask me,” says Tom Malinowski, the former Democratic Congressman who lost his seat to Kean last year. “But if (GOP Speaker Kevin) McCarthy is not prepared to put a reasonable plan up for a floor vote, then are those members willing to take the actions necessary to bring the Problem Solvers proposal forward? All it would take is five Republican votes.”
This is where it gets dicey for Kean. Because Democrats are now on an active hunt for Republicans who are willing to jump ship if McCarthy sticks to his hard line. They would need only five votes to pass what’s known as a “discharge petition” and put a plan like the Problem Solvers’ up for a vote on the House floor over McCarthy’s objection. Those five would undoubtedly come from swing districts like Kean’s 7th.
So, would Kean support that? When he was a state senator in Trenton, he was an affable centrist in the mold of his father and Christie Whitman, a favorite of both voters and the press, including me. But when he turned towards Washington, he embraced Donald Trump and McCarthy, refused interviews, and never once held an open public meeting. For many of those who knew him, the transformation was unnerving, even bizarre.
Which Kean will carry the day? Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11th, has her fingers crossed.
“This is going to require some thoughtful Republicans to engage,” she says. “I can think of five districts where the argument (to revolt against GOP leadership) might be compelling. I would think supporting a debt ceiling increase and supporting investments would be a compelling argument in the 7th.”
McCarthy is in a weak position, elected by a hair, and only after he bent the knee to his party’s crazy caucus. If he backs a compromise, he’s likely to lose his job, and that kind of patriotic sacrifice is nowhere to be found in his career history.
Which means the nation’s fate may well land in the lap of Republicans from swing districts, people like Tom Kean Jr. If they don’t revolt against the party’s MAGA leadership, the train could indeed go over the cliff.
Other Republicans in the same boat as Kean include mostly freshmen in swing districts who sometimes try to pass themselves off as vaguely “moderate,” even if not enough to offend easily offended MAGAts:
John James (MI)- won with 48.8%
John Durate (CA)- won with 50.21%
Mike Lawler (NY)- won with 50.32%
Zach Nunn (IA)- won with 50.35%
David Schweikert (AZ)- won with 50.44%
Brandon Williams (NY)- won with 50.49%
Juan Ciscomani (AZ)- won with 50.7%
Marc Molinaro (NY)- won with 50.8%
Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR)- won with 51.0%
Don Bacon (NE)- won with 51.3%
David Valadao (CA)- won with 51.5%
Jen Kiggans (VA)- won with 51.7%
Anthony D’Esposito (NY)- won with 51.8%
Michelle Steel (CA)- won with 52.4%
Mike Garcia (CA)- won with 53.2%
Monica De La Cruz (TX)- won with 53.3%
Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA)- won with 53.4%