WASHINGTON – Amid a stalled fight in Congress over the future of a $ 1 trillion coronavirus aid package, a parallel battle has been looming: a fight for the future of the Republican Party.
This week, behind closed doors in both the House and Senate, Republican lawmakers saw their anger not focus on Democrats, but on others, lawmakers and product strategists say about President Donald’s poll numbers Trump.
“They are dealing with a grim reality,” Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and former assistant to the House of Representatives, said of the prospects in congressional campaign committees.
The disagreements that arose last week appeared to be related to fiscal problems, such as continuing unemployment payments of $ 600 a week and how much money the federal government should continue to inject into the struggling economy.
But each fight revealed a match that appears to be looking beyond the dire prospects for November and toward the prospect of a leadership shakeup in the winter.
If Trump loses reelection, Republicans in Congress will have to deal with how to respond to President Joe Biden and which of its members is best suited to counter him. The risk remains that if Democrats secure a landslide, Republicans could lose control of the Senate.
If Trump can reverse his fortune and secure reelection, there will be Republicans hoping to turn his allegiance to the President into a rise in the ranks.
“Republicans have discovered that Trump is not going to be a bull, get out of this crisis and he will not be able to change the subject,” said Rick Tyler, a Republican strategist, explaining the recent intraparty. fights “Not only will they lose by hundreds of electoral votes, they will lose, they will lose seats in the House, they could possibly lose the Senate.”
‘The post-Trump world’
In the House, details leaked after a group of six conservative lawmakers in a closed-door meeting confronted Rep. Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyo., For her support of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who lobbied for considerations of public health on Trump’s desire to reopen the United States economy.
“It wasn’t about a particular issue, it was about the president, period,” Heye said. “And that tells me that it’s all about what comes after Trump, if the elections are as they are today.”
It was about “competing for the post-Trump world,” he said.
The daughter of a former vice president, Cheney has quickly risen through the ranks of her party after being elected to Congress in 2016. The highest-ranking Republican woman is considered to be on a restricted list to lead her caucus in the future.
He faced off against a group of men, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who were once the most conservative voices on the committee, but since Trump’s election have taken up the banner of presidential loyalty. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, joined the call that she should be removed from her leadership role.
Cheney has sometimes been both supportive and critical of Trump, a tactic Heye argues will help her distance herself from him once he leaves office.
“She is able to say, ‘I supported this administration 98 percent of the time, but when I had a problem with it, I stood up and said I didn’t attack the President, I stood up and spoke truths,'” Heye said.
Cheney’s rapid rise in the party is seen as evidence that Republicans realize they need to better attract women, a demographic that has been bleeding while Trump was in office in the future.
California House Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who would face challenges to his control of Republicans in the house if Trump lost, admitted that the episode with men who attacked Cheney in his party exposed his problems. with the women.
“I think we are improving. Do we have room for improvement? 100 percent yes, “McCarthy said Thursday.
‘The Republican Party is out of place’
In the Senate, the fight has fallen on more electoral lines, often pitting members for reelection this fall against those who are not.
At a lunchtime meeting Tuesday to discuss aid to the coronavirus, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, heard an uprising by conservative members who don’t want to renew a weekly $ 600 unemployment payment that was created at the beginning of the pandemic.
“What the hell are we doing?” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, testified at the meeting.
McConnell, who would likely face a challenge to his leadership role if Republicans lose the Senate, is also trying to ensure that senators facing reelection do not have to return to their districts empty-handed.
“There is great disagreement among the members,” said Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, who seems to position himself as a leading voice in a post-Trump world.
“Ideology is directly confronting the reality of the political crisis,” said Tyler, the Republican strategist. “We are caught in a deep recession that will not return before November. The virus will not go away in November. The economy will not return in November. “
Republicans have long argued about how to get their base excited before an election, and conservatives are again presenting their argument to Congress that fiscal austerity is the way to go.
“The best strategy for Republicans right now, for Donald Trump, is to present a bill, not the proposal, a bill that contains all the highest priorities of the Republican Party and the conservative movement,” said Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who has supported Trump.
He said McConnell’s current trajectory, who authored a bill that is the product of a commitment to start negotiations with Democrats, will make the base unhappy.
“You are going to see a very divided Republican party and a lot of conservative opposition to that bill, and that’s not a good idea before the November election,” said Moore.
“Pandemic politics is at a peak in both parties,” said a conservative Republican strategist who spoke in the background to speak frankly about internal political dynamics, adding that the party is “between a rock and a difficult place.”
“Right now, and we are still, politically speaking, light years from the election, the Republican Party is out of place.”
