McCarthy: Winning to Lose

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. It also discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  

It took 15 ballots for Kevin McCarthy to overcome hard-right resistance and become speaker.

This is what it came to before #KevinMcCarthy finally secured enough votes to become Speaker. We don't normally get to see all this on TV, and once McCarthy reinstates the C-SPAN camera rules, we won't again. Alabama's Mike Rogers had to be restrained from attacking Matt Gaetz. https://t.co/MIlfclu76l

— Doug Sovern (@SovernNation) January 7, 2023

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, holds her smart phone with former US President Donald Trump on the line, as Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican from Montana, waves it off during a meeting of the 118th Congress in the House Chamber on Friday.#SpeakerVote pic.twitter.com/VWvOGfXd9Q

— Al Drago (@Al_Drago) January 7, 2023

ICYMI — REUTERS snapped this pic of Santos voting for McCarthy as his other hand conspicuously forms the 👌🏻 sign, known by many to mean “white power” and frequently flashed by white supremacist groups.

He also has hired an aide who is a former Bannon producer. pic.twitter.com/P70VBeueGK

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) January 6, 2023

When you can’t tell whether Democrats or Republicans wrote the talking points. https://t.co/IXHx6ffz25

— Francis Wilkinson (@fdwilkinson) January 7, 2023

Two Years Later: Trump Enablers and McCarthy Resisters

 In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.  

Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu at Politico:

A handful of Republicans who remained in the Jan. 6 committee’s sights throughout its investigation are now leading the effort to deny Kevin McCarthy the speakership — using their power to bring the House to a standstill.

During its last days of existence, the Capitol riot panel unleashed a massive trove of evidence with an unmistakable conclusion: At every stage of former President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election results, a phalanx of hardline GOP lawmakers were egging him on. The committee’s latest material, including 250 witness transcripts, often portrayed those House Republicans as drivers, enablers and even architects of Trump’s Jan. 6 scheme.

And several conservatives currently standing against Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the top gavel, including House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), were among the handful of true believers in Trump’s efforts.

...

Ali Alexander, the leader of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” effort, put Gosar among a small group of members who might relay updates after speaking to Trump. He also said Gosar supported his push for a Washington protest on Jan. 6.

Other witnesses said Gosar was a member of a Twitter direct message thread that helped organize Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and related events.

...

Perry was another frequent presence in pre-Jan. 6 planning. Text messages the select committee obtained from Meadows show Perry pushing fringe theories about European efforts to steal the 2020 election from Trump.

From the J6 report:

The Committee’s investigation has shown that Congressman Perry wasworking with one Department of Justice official, Jeffrey Clark, regarding thestolen election claims. Perry was working with Clark and with President Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows with this goal: to enlist Clark toreverse the Department of Justice’s findings regarding the election and helpoverturn the election outcome.

After introducing Clark to the President, Perry sent multiple text messages to Meadows between December 26th and December 28th, pressing that Clark be elevated within the Department. Perry reminded Meadows that there are only “11 days to 1/6 . . . We gotta get going!,” and, as the dayswent on, one asking, “Did you call Jeff Clark?”

 

"People Don't Trust McCarthy"

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. It also discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  

Tina Nguyen at Puck:

Indeed, from the conversations I’ve had with allies of the 19 initial “no” votes, their opposition to McCarthy is more than just wrangling concessions. Rather, their outrage stems from what they consider to be McCarthy’s original sin: disloyalty and nihilism in pursuit of his ambition to wield the gavel. Recent news articles suggesting how much McCarthy donated to the campaigns of his antagonistes miss the point. That was all ex post facto wet-kissing. They have not forgotten, after all, that he worked to undermine them and their MAGA allies in the midterm primaries, spending millions against their campaigns and boosting more moderate challengers. Nor do they trust that a former Majority Whip who had privately tried to get Donald Trump to resign after January 6th would ever have their backs against the Washington machine. For many of them, the opposition is personal. And when they say that they would prefer anyone who is not McCarthy, they truly mean it.

“Every time Kevin sends his people out to go talk to the dissenters, whenever our side says Look, we want a leader with substance and a leader who believes in it, they all immediately know exactly the criticism that we’re talking about,” the source with knowledge of their negotiations told me. “People don’t trust McCarthy. They don’t think he’s proven himself to be trustworthy. And they think that he cares more about becoming speaker than he does about actually changing things and working to fix the institution

Split-Screen Congress

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. It also discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  

Look, Leader McConnell and I don’t agree on everything. In fact, we disagree on a great deal.

But the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law showed that when we work together, we can get things done and move the nation forward. pic.twitter.com/I4T5h5Odhr

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 4, 2023

What have we become as a political party when 20 people can rule 200 others against their will. Certainly not conservative. https://t.co/4XrbwA2ImC

— Sen. Kevin Cramer (@SenKevinCramer) January 4, 2023

Convenience Voting in 2022

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Jessica Piper at Politico:

Lawmakers of both parties made it easier to vote by expanding availability of mail and early voting in a politically mixed group of states: Vermont, Kentucky and Nevada.

The states had divergent results but shared a few key things in common. Making it easier to vote early or by mail did not lead to voter fraud, nor did it seem to advantage Republicans or Democrats. In Kentucky, Republicans held on to five of the state’s six congressional districts and a Senate seat. Both Vermont and Nevada saw split-ticket voters decide statewide races, by a gaping margin in Vermont and a narrow one in Nevada.

It reflects a broad lesson for other states that might consider expanding voter access or encouraging voting before Election Day: While voting methods have become deeply polarized by party, expanding access to early and mail voting does not appear to benefit one party over the other. Republicans do not do themselves any favors when they follow in Trump’s footsteps and vilify early voting: It puts more onus on their voters to cast ballots on a single day.

Trump v. Conservatives on Abortion

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. Abortion was a big issue in the 2022 midterm.

Ironically, Trump trying to deflect blame for the midterms by shifting the conversation abortion means he is still at fault since abortion wouldn't be a major issue had he not rammed through Amy Coney Barrett before the presidential election. https://t.co/AmCPF4OpAh

— Eric Michael Garcia (@EricMGarcia) January 2, 2023

The Price Stefanik Paid

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. It also discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  Case in point: the infamous Elise Stefanik.

Nicholas Confessore at NYT:

When Congress reconvenes, many of the younger, more Trump-critical Republicans who joined the House alongside Ms. Stefanik eight years ago will be gone. So will all but two of the Republicans who voted to impeach him. Some in Congress believe that if Mr. McCarthy cannot corral the votes to make himself speaker, Ms. Stefanik could offer herself up as a compromise candidate.

Yet her position may be more precarious than it appears. Unwilling to acknowledge that her politics have changed, she has never offered MAGA die-hards a persuasive conversion story, leaving behind lingering suspicion. “One thing I’ve heard consistently from pro-Trump members is that the 180 that she pulled was just so jarring,” said one veteran Republican lobbyist who is in touch with a wide array of Republican lawmakers.

Among her fellow Republicans, according to Republican lawmakers, Hill staff and lobbyists, Ms. Stefanik has a reputation for being both diligent in advancing the party’s message and unabashedly transactional in amassing chits of support for her own climb up the ladder. But her campaign donations and endorsements have given her support that may be more broad than deep. For much of the spring and summer, while serving as conference chair, she quietly tested the waters for promotion to the next highest-ranking House job, that of Republican whip. As the race grew more crowded, however, Ms. Stefanik found herself without a clear constituency for the position. The party’s remaining moderates no longer saw her as one of them, and its right wing preferred a more consistent conservative. Only when another House member announced his interest in succeeding her as conference chair did Ms. Stefanik finally commit to running for another term in her old job.

News stories about the upcoming presidential campaign still mention Ms. Stefanik as a rising star who might join a Trump ticket in 2024 — a political pole vault that would carry her, finally, to the very top of the Republican Party. But within the president’s inner circle, according to two people close to Mr. Trump, stories casting Ms. Stefanik as a potential running mate are regarded as clumsy plants by her own team, and inspire bemusement and mockery. Mr. Trump liked her, they said, and liked watching her defend him. But even he didn’t trust her.

 

“Santos had fundraised off an endorsement from fellow New York House Republican Conference Caucus Chair Elise Stefanik( #NY21 ), who has been mum on the revelations.” pic.twitter.com/5wgIYQNlEz

— GARY HARTMAN (@GARYHARTMAN) December 29, 2022