Will Voters Punish Republicans Who Take The MAGA Path Towards Default?

Some Extremists Admit The Prefer Default

Lawler beat Sean Patrick Maloney-- but he won't beat Mondaire Jones

Writing for Axios yesterday, Josh Kraushaar reported that “If Trump is at the top of the ticket, the 18 House Republicans in districts Biden carried will face existential danger. One House GOP strategist told Axios another Trump nomination would shrink the battleground map and limit the party's appeal in the suburbs. Swing voters make up the difference in competitive elections, but the bases of both parties are still gravitating to the extremes… [T]he 18 House Republican majority-makers— the representatives who won districts Biden carried in 2020— are looking newly vulnerable with the growing likelihood of Trump as the 2024 nominee… A liberal nonprofit group, Unrig Our Economy, is betting the GOP proposal to cut spending as part of a debt ceiling hike will be unpopular with swing voters. The group is airing over $1 million in ads targeting Biden-district freshman Reps. John Duarte (R-CA), Brandon Williams (R-NY) and Marc Molinaro (R-NY) for their support of the GOP debt ceiling legislation. It's very possible that we won't be seeing many bipartisan dealmakers left in Washington after 2024.”

The 18 districts Biden won in 2020 (with Biden’s margin) that Republican congressional candidates won in 2022— along with my brief assessment about how the Dems lost each district:

• NY-04- Anthony D’Esposito- 14.6%- mediocre establishment Dem

• CA-22- David Valadao- 13.0%- putrid Dem

• CA-27- Mike Garcia- 12.4%- putrid Dem

• CA-13- John Duarte- 10.9%- putrid Dem

• NY-17- Mike Lawler- 10.1%- putrid Dem

• OR-05- Lori Chavez-DeRemer- 8.8%- DCCC sabotage

• NY-03- George Santos- 8.2%- putrid candidate

• NY-22- Brandon Williams- 7.4%- putrid candidate

• NE-02- Don Bacon- 6.4%- not sure

• CA-45- Michelle Steel- 6.1%- Dem ran a GOP-lite campaign

• PA-01- Brian Fitzpatrick- 4.6%- DCCC ignored the race

• NY-19- Marc Molinaro- 4.6%- not sure

• NJ-07- Tom Kean- 3.8%- Dem establishment surrendered the district

• CA-40- Young Kim- 1.9%- DCCC ignored the race

• VA-02- Jen Kiggans- 1.9%- mediocre Dem candidate

• AZ-01- David Schweikert- 1.5%- DCCC ignored the race

• NY-01- Nick LaLota- 0.2%- mediocre Dem candidate

• AZ-06- Juan Ciscomani- 0.1%- DCCC sabotaged the race

With the Republicans passing their unpopular agenda in the House (and in state legislatures) and with the GOP working overtime to prevent Gen Z from voting at all (Florida, Texas, Georgia to name a few), Biden is preparing to take the debt ceiling fight “directly to some of the rank-and-file GOP lawmakers whose votes could become crucial. Biden’s planned campaign-style trip to suburban New York on Wednesday— a day after he meets with congressional leaders— is the latest move in a White House strategy to pressure House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the spending battle in the soft underbelly of his fragile majority: GOP House members in competitive districts Biden carried in November. Biden is traveling to the Hudson River Valley district represented by Mike Lawler, a freshman Republican who defeated Democratic incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney in November… Lawler joined Republicans last month in rallying behind his party’s debt package… which would raise the debt limit, curb spending and repeal key pieces of Biden’s agenda. ‘House Republicans that brand themselves as moderate lined up with the most extreme MAGA members on this vote, and we are making sure their constituents are aware of the true nature of their priorities,’ White House communications director Ben LaBolt said. ‘It’s up to them whether they will continue to side with MAGA extremists or come together to ensure that the country avoids default.’”

Keeping Lawler’s seat will be critical for Republicans’ chances to retain their narrow five-seat majority in the House, and other moderates are coming under pressure from both sides in the debt ceiling fight. Democrats see them as potential votes for what’s known as a discharge petition, an emergency step that would bypass House GOP leadership to force a vote on a “clean” debt ceiling increase.

Even if a clean debt ceiling increase could pass in the House, it would face a battle in the Senate, where 43 Republicans signed a letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer over the weekend saying they wouldn’t vote for “any bill that raises the debt ceiling without substantive spending and budget reforms.”

…“Of course, the objective is to absolutely 100% avoid default,” Lawler said after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned last week that the deadline to extend the debt ceiling or face the first U.S. default could be as early as June 1.

Biden said in an interview Friday that he’s prepared to negotiate with Republicans “in detail” about an overall budget bill, but he insisted that the debt ceiling discussion be completely separate, and he reiterated his call to pass a “clean” increase, without restrictions. He called McCarthy an “honest man” under pressure from “MAGA Republicans” and noted it took him 15 votes to secure the speakership in January.

Asked for a response to the president’s planned trip, McCarthy spokesperson Mark Bednar told NBC News that Biden “should focus his attention on not bumbling into default rather than traveling around the country to shout at Americans who know that spending has gotten out of control.”

A new White House analysis of the GOP debt bill’s potential impacts argued that benefits would be cut for tens of thousands of veterans across a sampling of 18 congressional districts if the GOP vision became law— most of them the same swing seats.