On the surface, Republicans should have all the reasons to feel confident. President Joe Biden’s approval ratings are still fairly low, as a Fox News poll shows he has a 56 per cent disapproval rating. Inflation remains stubbornly high, even if it isn’t skyrocketing the way it once did. Friday’s latest jobs report shows that while the labour market is strong, the Federal Reserve’s increased interest rates caused it to slow down as it tries to tamp down prices.
Those numbers typically signal a bumpy road for a president seeking re-election. Instead, Republicans got hit with a bevy of negative headlines from both the national and state level.
First and foremost, the week opened with former president Donald Trump being arrested and arraigned for charges related to his supposed hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
While many Republicans may see the decision by a grand jury last week to indict the former president as a political witch hunt and some Republican leaders would like to move on from Mr Trump, he still remains the de facto leader of the GOP.
As such, Republicans are forced to mobilise and defend Mr Trump. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan subpoenaed Mark Pomerantz, who resigned from New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office last year for supposedly refusing to pursue a criminal trial against Mr Trump. Of course, this distracts from Mr Jordan and the rest of the GOP’s plans on keeping the heat on the Biden administration and keeps Mr Trump in the headlines.
That same Tuesday, Republicans in Wisconsin received a massive blow when liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, shifting the court’s balance to give liberals the majority for the first time in more than a decade.
The race shows that abortion rights continue to have salience for voters after the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson decision that overturned Roe v Wade, since Wisconsin has a ban on abortion dating back to 1849. The potential fear of losing abortion rights caused Republicans’ expected red wave last year to fizzle out and for House Republicans to barely win the majority. It cost Republicans many winnable races for governor and Senate.
And there are signs that the fragile House GOP coalition already has some cracks only three months in. The New York Times published a story on Thursday detailing how little confidence House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has in House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, who should ostensibly be leading the GOP’s plans to cut spending as they plan a showdown with Mr Biden to raise the debt limit. The story also detailed Mr McCarthy’s frustration with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise whom the speaker reportedly considers as “ineffective, checked out and reluctant to take a position on anything.”
Dissent within House Leadership is not uncommon. John Boehner had an incredibly acrimonious relationsip with his House Majority Leader Eric Cantor during his speakership and Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer feuded bitterly, as The Times notes.
But if the bad blood is already brewing before negotiations with the White House begin, then the House GOP conference will be playing at a disadvantage.
Republicans ended their week with equally negative headlines on the state level. Last week, after the shooting in Nasvhille, some on the right hoped to exploit that the shooter at the Covenant School was transgender as a means to take the attention off passing legislation to mitigate gun violence.
It played right into their hands of increasingly targeting transgender people and the idea that trans people are a threat to Christians, given the shooting took place at a Presbyterian school.
Instead, many harshly criticised Republicans in the state legislature for choosing to expel two state Black male Democratic state legislators Justin Pearson and Justin Jones who joined in protests at the state capitol. They also attempted to expel another state representative Gloria Johnson, who is white, but the vote failed.
In lieu of flat-out ignoring the attempts at protest and simply moving on, which has been a tried and true tactic of Republicans after mass shootings, Republicans chose to elevate the Democratic legislators and make them martyrs.
That has already happened. On Friday, Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party who is fresh off a judicial victory, tweeted to mobilize his supporters to throw their efforts behind Tenneessee Democrats as the state faces a redistricting case for allegedly unfairly draw legislative maps that disenfranchise voters.
