Will Swing Voters Turn On Republican Incumbents Next Year?
Yesterday, Theodoric Meyer and Leigh Ann Caldwell reminded Washington Post readers that “Congress is about to wrap its least productive legislative year since at least 1973.” It really is a do-nothing Congress, peopled with nihilists, led by incompetents and petrified at every turn that they might do something to anger Trump and his allies. MAGA Republicans have somehow come to the conclusion that they can force their extreme ideological agenda-- much of it very unpopular-- onto everyone else... and that compromise is a sign of weakness and a betrayal of Trump.
Oklahoma extremist Markwayne Mullin took a few minutes away from fighting with Florida extremist Matt Gaetz, to discount the House’s rush to impeach Biden for Trump. Although he’s a McDonald’s franchisee, not an attorney, Mullin “suggested that President Joe Biden may not qualify for impeachment in the House GOP investigation because if he did commit a crime, he isn't holding that same office anymore or wasn't even in office at the time. ‘The bar is real high. There's not question about it,’ Mullin said in an interview on Newsmax on Friday morning. ‘It's got to be a misdemeanor or high crime or treason and the other part has to be committed while he was in office. The current office that he holds. So, what he did as a vice president or what he did in-between the two may not be impeachable.’”
Mullin won’t face the Oklahoma voters again until 2028, so, unlike so many of his colleagues in both chambers, he has nothing to fear from Trump. Yes, Trump, who rules his craven party by fear. “[T]he same impulse,” wrote Alex Tabet, “that has led Republican officeholders to avoid criticizing Trump because of potential threats to their safety and their jobs is also holding back rank-and-file voters from opposing the former president in public with the full strength of their personal convictions.”
Trump’s criticism forced several senators and House members into retirement or primary defeat during his first years in office. Later, of the 10 House Republicans who voted to bring impeachment charges against Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, four retired before facing voters in 2022 and another four lost their next primaries. Only two remain in the House.
In the Senate, three of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump have since retired or resigned, and Sen. Mitt Romney is retiring next year.
Romney recounted to biographer McKay Coppins that Republican members of Congress confided to him they wanted Trump impeached and convicted but would vote against the charges because they were worried about threats to their families.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the Republicans who lost a 2022 primary after voting to impeach Trump, detailed similar conversations in her new memoir.
Cheney wrote about one colleague that she “absolutely understood his fear” about what would happen if he voted to impeach Trump. But, she continued, “I also thought, ‘Perhaps you need to be in another job.’”
…[A]s Cheney and Romney’s stories demonstrate, social ostracization isn’t limited to just voters who speak out against Trump. Former Rep. Denver Riggleman, who represented a slice of Virginia from 2019 to 2021, says his mother texted him, “I’m sorry you were ever elected,” after he came out against Trump.
“It was so soul-crushing to have a family member choose Donald Trump over you,” Riggleman continued. He said evangelical Trump supporters in his life saw Trump as being blessed by God. “I was going directly against religious beliefs. And that’s a losing battle.”
It’s now been almost six months since a member of Congress endorsed a non-Trump candidate in the 2024 GOP primary, according to NBC News’ endorsement tracking.
The trend has popped up elsewhere on the 2024 campaign trail, too. When Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds endorsed Ron DeSantis in November, the Florida governor mentioned in an interview with NBC News that he “had people come to me and say they endorsed [Trump] because of the threats and everything like that” during the campaign.
Trump quickly went after Reynolds after news of her DeSantis endorsement broke, posting on social media that it would “be the end of her political career.”
Charlie Sykes was a conservative radio show host in Wisconsin for more than 20 years before Trump burst onto the political scene. Sykes was skeptical and critical of Trump, eventually confronting him in a heated interview about insults Trump hurled at Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife in 2016. But for Sykes, it began to become clear that there was no room anymore for anti-Trump conservatives on talk radio.
“The audience of conservative talk radio began to think that loyalty was required. They wanted conservative media to be a safe space for them,” Sykes said, describing how his role became untenable.
After leaving radio, Sykes didn’t let up on his Trump criticism, which he says got him booted from a think tank and led him to lose friends and become a self-described political orphan. He says his criticism was met with bullying— and he understands why people who don’t work in the public eye might be hesitant to voice their true feelings about Trump.
“I do understand why people in their normal lives don’t want to be caught up in this vortex of controversy and vilification— why they would step back from all of this,” Sykes said.
Another longtime Wisconsin Republican recently detailed one of the results of that pressure.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan recently spoke on video at an event for Teneo, a global consulting firm where he serves as vice-chair. Ryan said the impulse to avoid getting on the wrong side of angry Trump supporters pushed former colleagues to vote against impeachment even though they wanted Trump gone— and now he thinks there are many who regret those votes.
“They figured, ‘I’m not gonna take this heat and I’m going to vote against this impeachment because he’s gone anyway,’” Ryan said. “But what’s happened is that he’s been resurrected.”
One way this is manifesting itself right now is the Biden impeachment nonsense that Trump demanded. Many Republicans in Congress admit that there is no there there. But every single one of them— without exception— voted to begin an impeachment inquiry, putting off reckoning for a few months when they will have to vote to actually impeach or not impeach. This could be a career-ending dilemma for incumbents who depend on swing voters like these 20, for example:
Mike Lawler (NY) D+3
Mike Garcia (CA) D+4
Anthony D’Esposito (NY) D+5
John Duarte (CA) D+4
Maria Salazar (FL) even
Nick LaLota (NY) R+3
Don Bacon (NE) even
David Schweikert (AZ) R+2
Ken Calvert (CA) R+3
Michelle Steel (CA) D+2
Tom Kean (NJ) R+1
John James (MI) R+3
Brandon Williams (NY)- D+1
Lori Chavez DeReemer (OR)- D+2
Young Kim (CA) R+2
Monica De La Cruz (TX) R+1
Brain Fitzpatrick (PA) 1
Marc Molinaro (NY) even
David Valadao (CA) D+5
Zach Nunn (IA) R+3
On Thursday Nick Reisman reported that House Republicans in swing districts are trapped between the MAGA base that wants to see Biden impeached “and the risk of being portrayed as extremists as they defend their seats in the 2024 midterm elections. Vulnerable GOP members are trying to perform a high-stakes balancing act: Support the inquiry, but refrain from a full-throated endorsement of impeachment… Democrats expect the issue will remain a potent one for voters— allowing their candidates to talk about substantive matters, while portraying Republicans as obsessed with attacking Biden. And in New York and California, which have a plethora of competitive House races, early signs show Republican discomfort over the issue.”
David Valadao, a California Republican in a district Biden won by 11 points in 2020, emphasized in an interview that he was simply voting to advance the probe, not to impeach the president.
Asked if voters in his swing district will make that distinction, he said, “We’ll find out.”
“I’ve voted on the Trump one. I voted on the expulsion of Santos. I’ve taken a pretty bipartisan approach on this one,” Valadao said. “When they’re wrong, they’re wrong— call it.”
Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro, who represents a Hudson Valley district in New York to the north of Lawler, also comforted himself with the shaky view voters have of Biden.
“Now, with serious questions about President Biden, Congress has a responsibility to check it out. It is our job to do so,” he said in a statement to Politico. “Because if he handles his personal affairs anything like he does inflation, crime, or the border— there’s reason for us to be suspicious.”
Other Republicans are making a plea for restraint.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a Long Island Republican, urged his GOP colleagues “to advance this inquiry in a level-headed fashion and let only the facts guide us.”
…For some California Republicans, that vote “is akin to walking the plank,” said Mike Madrid, a GOP strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. He argued that the many voters won’t know or care about the distinction between a procedural and impeachment vote.
Still, some Republicans fear the price of inaction for the party on pursuing impeachment against Biden, whose popularity with voters continues to sag.
Former Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) pointed to broad support within the Republican base for a Biden impeachment.
Not acting against Biden could hamper Republican turnout, Sweeney said. But at the same time, top GOP lawmakers need to explain to more moderate voters why the inquiry is necessary.
“It could be risky.It could also be risky to do nothing” he said. “It depends on how thorough and how effective the Republican majority is at communicating the evidence they’ve got.”