In California’s 45th Congressional District, along Western Avenue in Buena Park, a giant billboard is set to display a photograph of Rep. Michelle Steel next to former President Donald Trump and Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican hard-liner from Ohio she voted for twice this week for speaker.
“Rep Steel Supports Extremism,” the billboard reads. “Stop the extremism.”
The advertising campaign, paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, is part of a broad effort by Democrats to target Republicans like Steel, who represent congressional districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020. A dozen of those vulnerable GOP lawmakers have stood on the House floor this week and cast their votes to put Jordan second in line to the presidency.
Another group, the Congressional Integrity Project, began a digital ad campaign this week in those same districts, focusing on Jordan and his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.
“Every House Republican who votes for Jim Jordan to be speaker of the House should be held accountable for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his role in the January 6 fake electors plot and his continued attacks on our democracy,” said Kyle Herrig, the executive director of the advocacy organisation.
The latest round of House Republican infighting has badly damaged the GOP brand. It has left the party leaderless and one chamber of Congress paralysed for more than two weeks. The chaos is raising the chances that Democrats could win back the majority next year and it has given them ample ammunition for their campaign narrative, which casts Republicans as right-wing extremists who are unfit to govern.
“It hurts the country. It hurts the Congress. It’s hurting our party,” said Rep Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of 18 Republicans who represent districts won by Biden in 2020. “It’s putting us in a bad hole for next November.”
He said his hard-right colleagues who moved to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy this month and touched off the intractable scramble to replace him “want to be in the minority.”
Bacon added: “I think they would prefer that. So they can just vote no and just yell and scream all the time.”
The Nebraska lawmaker opposed Jordan’s candidacy, but he and other mainstream GOP lawmakers worry that, no matter who is ultimately elected speaker, the Ohio Republican’s nomination has only boosted Democrats’ efforts to tie them to the most hard-right members of their party, placing their seats at risk in 2024.
Republican groups are pushing back on a narrative of extremism and dysfunction. The American Action Network is running an ad campaign lauding 16 Republicans in Biden districts who voted to prevent a government shutdown last month.
But Democrats have seized every opportunity to condemn Jordan, and Republicans for backing him.
“Jim Jordan is the poster boy for MAGA extremism,” Rep Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, said Tuesday night.
In a speech on the House floor in which he nominated Jeffries for speaker, Rep Pete Aguilar of California, the No 3 House Democrat, laid out a case against Jordan that could have doubled as a template for a campaign attack ad against any Republican who supported him.
“A vote today to make the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier and an insurrection inciter to the speaker of this House would be a terrible message to the country and our allies,” Aguilar said.
The candidacy of Jordan, the combative co-founder of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus and a key player in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, has left many House Republicans in a no-win position.
If Jordan were to prevail — a prospect that appeared less likely Wednesday after he lost a second ballot — his ascension would cement the House GOP’s reputation as an extreme group that is composed of Trump’s loyal foot soldiers. And if the hard-right lawmaker fails, the disarray could in the House drag on, only hardening the view of Republicans as completely incapable of governing.
For mainstream Republicans representing politically competitive districts, the damage may already be done regardless of the outcome of the vote, or how many rounds it takes.
“It’s hard to present yourself as a figure of bipartisan compromise and moderation when you vote for someone who resolutely stands against any bipartisan compromise and is the furthest thing from a moderate a voter can imagine,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster.
Bullish Republicans dismissed the chaos that has ground the House to a standstill as “Beltway drama” that would be forgotten by November 2024.
“When the dust settles, not a single competitive House race has changed,” said Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main House Republican super political action committee. “Our targeted incumbents are strong and have cultivated individual brands.” He added that “our recruits are far superior” to those of the Democrats.
Republicans have also noted that the political climate overall remained positive for them.
A recent ABC poll, for instance, showed Biden with a 26 per cent approval rating on immigration and border security; a 29 per cent approval rating on inflation; and a 33 per cent approval rating on crime.
A poll conducted last month by Gallup showed 57 per cent of respondents saying Republicans were better at protecting the country from international terrorism and military threats, compared with 35 per cent for Democrats — the widest gap Gallup has registered since it began polling the question in 2002.
Still, the political climate isn’t substantially different from last year, when Republicans failed to achieve the expected sweeping victories and won the House majority by just four seats. One of the only things that has shifted since then is the demonstrable failure of House Republicans to govern.
Strategists noted that even if the speaker fight had never happened, mainstream Republicans already were facing a difficult political challenge with Trump the most likely presidential candidate to top their party’s ticket.
Some Republicans from swing districts said this week that they hoped their voters would be able to separate them from the chaos surrounding their party.
“I am going to be judged by the work that I do, and whoever runs against me is going to be judged based on their experience and livelihood,” said Rep. Marc Molinaro of New York, who voted for Jordan and represents a district Biden won in 2020. “I truly believe that at the end of the day, if we’re earnest and honest with the people we represent and authentic in that service, they’ll judge us based on that.” - The New York Times
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