Twenty Republicans are obstructing returning the Speaker’s gavel to a member of their own party. As we are closing on the second day of the chaos without being any closer to conclusive results, it is worth remembering whom Republicans owe their majority to. Hint: The people denying the GOP the Speakership also did little to give their party its House majority.
In the 2022 election cycle, the twenty insurgent Republicans together raised nearly $48 million for their campaign committees and another $2 million for their affiliated Super PACs, including the $0 raised by the PAC affiliated with Andy Biggs, the Arizona Republican who was the first challenger to Kevin McCarthy, the choice of an overwhelming number of Congressional Republicans for Speaker.
In contrast, McCarthy raised $26 million for his campaign committee and another staggering $227 million for his affiliated Super PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund. The amount is even more impressive given the fact that former President, Donald Trump, was sucking a lot of grassroots donations by raising money for himself without spending any on winning a Republican majority.
Two-hundred Republicans in the House appreciate that McCarthy got them their majority. Certain challenges denied Republicans a red wave in 2022. But unlike the Senate, where Democrats increased their majority, McCarthy’s strategy, in addition to fundraising success, has helped Republicans regain control in the House.
Republicans not only owe their majority to McCarthy, but they can also blame their insurgent colleagues for it being a narrow one. Lauren Boebert, an outspoken McCarthy critic, raised $7.6 million for her campaign committee. Ordinarily, she should have had a smooth reelection running in an R+6 district with an unpopular Democratic President in office. Yet she spent most of that large sum of money. $3 million alone went to Rock Chalk Media, a Coloradio public relations company whose only political work in the 2022 cycle was for Boebert’s campaign. All of this money in a Republican district accomplished a victory with only a few hundred votes.
Matt Gaetz, the leader of the insurgents, was second in fundraising with $6.3 million. Out of that, more than half was spent on raising more money, while less than 5 percent went into contributions to other campaigns to help Republicans win a majority.
There is a lot of noise about how unpopular McCarthy is. But after several rounds of voting, there have been only two defections from McCarthy, while 9 out of 10 Republicans have stood by him all along. And there is a reason for it. They know whom they owe their majority to, and they also know who is responsible for denying them the red wave they were hoping for. The headlines about McCarthy’s weak support in his conference are just click bait, but the real story is that his conference supports him.
No less important is that the conference dislikes the insurgents. It wants to start the process of governing, from legislating to providing oversight on the administration of Joe Biden. But 20 of their colleagues, the same colleagues who denied them a large majority, now won’t let them get to the business of the American people.
Principles are important, but not as important as actually governing. If the holdouts think they’re going to get kudos from the base for allowing Democrats to retain effective control of all three chambers they are badly mistaken.
Republicans have a choice. Either side with the man who led them to victory, or side with those who almost caused a catastrophic defeat by spending millions of dollars on anything but the GOP’s efforts to win. And they are siding with the guy who won in November. That’s the real story.