District by district added, the phenomenon makes for a very different Republican Party than the one Trump nominated in 2016, four years after he elevated Mitt Romney to the presidential race – as evidenced by the fact that “Romney Republican” a epithet has become numerous 2020 Republican primary.
The House GOP conference is set to be smaller, but next year will see Trumpier, holding the president in the party’s top ranks. And while some Republicans worry that this will make it harder to win back the House, the growing Trump footprint in safe seats means that the next time they win the majority, the president’s political style and staunchest supporters will play a big role. will play in the national government whether Trump is still on the scene or not.
The last party cleaning took place on Tuesday in Florida, where voters retired GOP Rep. Francis Rooney – a leading Trump critic who considered voting for impeachment – with Byron Donalds, one of several devotees who competed to represent the entire Republican district by showing how strong they stood with Trump.
“I spoke to both of the presidents in the November 2016 election here in southwest Florida,” said Donalds, a state representative who could be the only Black Republican in the House next year, in a pre-primary interview. . “I gave the president an award in 2019. I was at the launch of Black Voices for Trump. I think if anyone in this race has shown that they are a supporter of the president – before they actually decided to run for office – I’m it. ”
Following Trump has overcame taxes and spending faster than the most dominant issue for Republican primary voters, said David McIntosh, president of the anti-tax group Club for Growth. A candidate could jump anywhere between 15 to 20 points in the group’s internal poll if voters learn of a Trump Twitter distinction, he said. And the Club has found a potential campaign attack in the revelation that a candidate gave in to Romney in 2012, but not Trump in 2016.
“That tells the voter: OK, maybe he’s saying in his heart that he’s a Trump Republican, but maybe he’s really a Romney Republican,” McIntosh said. “In Republican primaries, if they feel that someone will not be loyal to President Trump, then their poll numbers are on their way.”
The name as the image of Trump appeared in more than 60 percent of the more than 600 televised ads this cycle in Republican primaries, according to a POLITICO analysis of data from media tracking firm Advertising Analytics, with candidates who ‘ t regularly reassert Trump’s promises to “build the wall,” escaped political correctness and restored American greatness.
But as the primary season draws to a close next month, there is a growing concern among some in the GOP that their conference will be dominated by people whose leading power is not principle as ideology, but blind devotion.
“That’s a real risk for Republicans,” said former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), Who retired in 2018. “That they will get some man wearing a MAGA hat, as opposed to people who may have a greater sense of what they believe in other than the president.”
Approximately 47 percent of the 241 Republicans in the House when Trump took office have, will or will leave the House by 2021 – and that percentage could grow if more GOP officials lose in November. While some left to join the Trump administration or seek a higher office, about 90 have resigned either retired or lost.
This reform of the House GOP conference is fueled by the fact that many retirees are one of the few lawmakers willing to offer at least a modicum of opposition to Trump over issues with principle or policy.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), who often criticizes Trump for foreign policy, will be replaced in Congress by Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor who suggested that Trump follow a better diet until the age of 200. Rep. Paul Mitchell, (R-Mich.) – who admitted retiring after just two terms, partly out of frustration over the president’s tweets – will be succeeded by Lisa McClain, an enterprising woman who controversy arose by attending a Trump rally at a local cider mill during the pandemic. (Former campaign manager Trumpy Corey Lewandowski was set to attend.)
Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), Who said he would write in another Republican about his 2016 vote out of disgust over Trump’s remarks about women, will hand over his seat to Diana Harshbarger, who calls herself ‘Trump’ -conservative ‘gave up when they presented the president in various TV commercials. And Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.), Who once publicly stated that she could not vote for Trump and looks her children in the eye, will be followed in Congress by former State Rep. Barry Moore, who says he was the first elected official in the country to support Trump for president.
Moore, who unsuccessfully challenged Roby in 2018 following the Congresswoman’s anti-Trump distance, trained the finisher in first place with 18 points in the first round of the primary. He dominated in a primary runoff after suffering heavily on his early allegiance to Trump, with footage from the August 2015 rally, where he supported the president that appeared in his campaign ads.
“By having the videos and the recordings and being at the convention in Cleveland, it just added credibility to the fact that when we said we supported the president, we actually did,” Moore said in an interview. ‘A picture is worth 1,000 words and I had a boatload of pictures with him. My opponent had nothing. ”
The full embrace of Trump’s GOP base could complicate any post-mortem attempt by the party if Democrats capture the White House in November.
Leaders of the House Republicans and the National Republican Congressional Committee have already faced blowbacks for their plans to welcome Georgia’s Greene into their caucus. In addition to her promulgation of QAnon theories, she also has hours of video taping that makes racist remarks.
But some operatives have warned that if the Republican Party is dominated by loud noises that wander to the extremes, it could undermine the GOP’s ability to build a majority-winning coalition.
“What the House Republican Conference and the NRCC will have to decide in advance is if they are content to remain in the minority with that kind of member that the House Republican Conference is making or if they want to do the work to expand the tent,” Said Michael Steel, a former top supporter of former speaker John Boehner.
“The party should be defined by its best arguments, not the least of the excesses,” he added.
If Trump wins re-election, he will find himself with an iron grip on a Republican conference cut by many who would speak out against him. In interviews, few Republican primary candidates are ready to identify areas where they would break with Trump’s policies.
Rooney, who spent his days just after announcing on TV that he would judge the president, correctly predicted in an interview late last year that the race to replace him would follow that trajectory.
“A large segment of our district is very, very significant to President Trump. They will want to see a candidate in whom they have absolute confidence, that will not deviate from what the president wants to do, “Rooney said.” That has at times put me under pressure with some of them, because I am my own person. . “
