On Tuesday afternoon, House Republicans hit the proverbial iceberg — jettisoning Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s office in the Capitol. Over the next few days or even weeks, in trying to find a new leader, they will busy themselves rearranging the deck chairs on their doomed vessel. Because no matter who gets the speaker’s gavel, whether it’s Rep. Jim Jordan, Rep. Steve Scalise or even Donald Trump, it is increasingly likely that the GOP’s House majority is headed to the bottom of the political ocean.
That Jordan and Scalise are the two announced candidates highlights Republicans’ treacherous political state. Jordan, who has been accused of turning a blind eye to a sexual abuse scandal when he was a college wrestling coach, might be the single most obnoxious and dishonest member of the GOP caucus. Considering the other candidates for that distinction, that is really saying something. Scalise is perhaps best known for declaring himself “David Duke without the baggage.” Duke, of course, is a neo-Nazi and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard.
Democrats need only five seats to take back the House in 2024 — and that seems like an increasingly likely outcome.
And with Scalise and Jordan's paths to winning over the full caucus still unclear, some House Republicans are even pining for Trump to get the job (the House speaker does not have to be a member of Congress). Trump has endorsed Jordan, but if the craziest timeline happened, it would create a true dilemma for Democrats: Do they have to report what would, in effect, be an in-kind contribution to President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign?
Even if any of these candidates could quickly unite a deeply divided Republican caucus (and the likelihood of that happening is close to zero), it likely won’t matter. Thirteen months out from the 2024 elections, House Republicans are in perilous waters. They hold one of the narrowest margins in the House’s history. Democrats need only five seats to take back the House in 2024 — and that seems like an increasingly likely outcome.
The primary reason is a spate of state and federal court decisions that alone could net the Democrats enough seats to win back the House.
This summer, the Supreme Court — in a surprise decision — ruled that Alabama had violated the Voting Rights Act by creating only one majority-black congressional district. After the high court reaffirmed that ruling last month, Alabama will have no choice but to create a second majority-black seat, which will almost certainly go to Democrats. The court’s decision could affect legal claims made in Louisiana, Florida and Georgia, which could require all three states to add at least one majority Black district. And it complicates Republican efforts in North Carolina to further redraw the state’s congressional districts in the party’s favor.
So right off the bat, Democrats appear poised to add three or four seats, further narrowing the GOP’s already thin margin. At the state level, the Ohio Supreme Court recently dashed GOP hopes of redrafting the state’s congressional lines, siding with Democrats and preserving the state’s 2022 congressional map. And in New York, a state appeals court ordered the state’s redistricting commission to work on a new map for 2024. If that decision holds, the commission’s map would replace a court-drawn map that helped New York Republicans pick up three seats last year. The result could be as many as a half dozen seats redrawn to help Democrats.
To say that nine months of GOP rule in the House has been a dumpster fire would be unfair to dumpster fires.
According to the latest House rankings from the Cook Political Report, 14 Republican-held seats are considered toss-ups. All but two are in states Biden won in 2020, including four in New York and three in California. With Democratic turnout likely to increase in a presidential election, those GOP members are particularly vulnerable to losing next November. Conversely, of the 10 Democratic seats considered toss-ups, five are in states won by Biden.
On top of redistricting and better Democratic turnout, there’s the larger issue raised by this week’s events on Capitol Hill: Why would any swing voter keep Republicans in charge?
To say that nine months of GOP rule in the House has been a dumpster fire would be unfair to dumpster fires. What exactly are Republicans going to run on? “We almost plunged the country into an economic catastrophe by not raising the debt limit, but at the last minute, came to our senses.”
Aside from a deeply unpopular impeachment inquiry into Biden and countless hearings on Hunter Biden’s laptop, it’s hard to identify anything that House Republicans have legislatively accomplished this year. Instead, they have created more drama than my middle school daughter’s group chat. They’ve bounced from crisis to crisis, fought among themselves, elevated extremists and kooks, and pretty much ignored other matters like inflation, health care, immigration, gun violence, climate change, etc.
Republicans don’t need another two years; they need an intervention. Truth be told, while no political party ever wants to be in the minority in the House, for Republicans, it dovetails with their core competencies — complaining about things, airing grievances, and not dirtying their hands with the hard work of actually governing the country.
So, no matter what happens in the fight to captain the House GOP’s sinking ship, the real question might be which members will make it to the lifeboats.
