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She gave the state of Wyoming the middle finger. Hes a traitor. We want a real Republican in there.

These are just some of the criticisms that Republicans have lobbed at the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. The criticisms havent stopped there, either. Trump told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month to get rid of them all. And all but one of these 10 representatives have been publicly rebuked by state or local GOP officials. In total, nine already face a primary challenger in 2022.

But is this opposition real or just noise? After all, were still a long way from the 2022 primaries, which leaves plenty of time for anger surrounding their votes to impeach Trump to fade.

At first glance, the seriousness of the primary challengers does vary quite a bit, ranging from the very serious that is, other elected officials, who tend to be stronger candidates to political newcomers like a conservative activist best known for getting married in a MAGA dress. Yet, in most cases, these representatives should all have at least some reason to be concerned about winning renomination in 2022 especially those who hail from more Republican-leaning districts.

The 10 House Republicans who backed impeachment, including whether they were publicly admonished by state or local Republican Party committees and whether they have a primary challenger

*Valadao lost reelection in Californias 21st Congressional District in 2018 but won the seat back in 2020.

Admonishment includes a censure or public rebuke by a Republican Party committee at the state, district or county level.

Source: Daily Kos Elections, Federal Election Commission, News Reports, U.S. House of Representatives

The Republican in most danger of losing renomination, South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice, ironically has the most conservative voting record among these 10 members, too. But thanks to South Carolina election rules, he faces a tougher road to renomination than the other nine. Thats because he must capture a majority of the votes in a primary or runoff to win whereas the others only need a plurality. Theres reason to think, too, that Republicans in South Carolinas 7th Congressional District could be especially receptive to a Trump-motivated primary challenge, as it was Trumps strongest district in the states 2016 presidential primary.

In fact, Rice has already been censured by the South Carolina GOP and attracted two challengers, both of whom hold elected office: Horry County school board Chairman Ken Richardson and state Rep. William Bailey. (Bailey hasnt officially announced, but he has taken a big first step in forming an exploratory committee.) Others could run, too. And if Rice does lose, he wouldnt be the first Palmetto State House Republican in recent years to lose a primary after running afoul of conservatives: In 2018, Rep. Mark Sanford lost his primary after being critical of Trump, and in 2010, Rep. Bob Inglis got crushed in a runoff after earning the Tea Partys ire for being too moderate.

After Rice, the next most endangered Republican may be the most well-known name here: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. As a part of the House GOPs leadership, Cheney will have a huge campaign war chest to help with her reelection bid, but Republican fury over her vote to impeach Trump runs deep: The Wyoming state GOP has censured her, as have more than half of the partys county committees in the state, while her colleagues in D.C. even held a vote on whether to remove her from leadership.

Anger at Cheney could keep burning, too, given her national profile and because Wyoming Republicans, long the dominant force in state politics, have grown a lot more conservative. For instance, in 2020 an influx of right-wing primary challengers defeated more moderate lawmakers in six state Senate and House districts and mounted major challenges in about a dozen other seats. Those campaigns were largely backed by conservative groups and Republican leaders who wanted to oust Republicans in name only, and the same sentiments could boost Cheney primary challengers like state Sen. Anthony Bouchard and state Rep. Chuck Gray, a pair of right-wing state legislators who have already said theyll take on Cheney.

Next up are Midwestern Reps. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who each have a noteworthy challenger with Trump ties: former Trump aide Max Miller will take on Gonzalez, while former Trump Commerce Department adviser Catalina Lauf is running against Kinzinger. Its not just their votes on impeachment that make Gonzalez and Kinzinger vulnerable. According to Voteview.com, their voting records are among the least conservative of all House Republicans despite representing seats Trump carried by 14 to 16 percentage points. Kinzinger in particular has earned a reputation as a Trump critic and was one of eight Republicans to recently support expanding background checks for gun sales.

The six remaining Republicans arent as vulnerable, but at least a couple of them could still run into primary danger.

For instance, for the three members from California and Washington, the top-two primary format should help them weather their primary challenges, as no House incumbent has failed to advance to the general election in those states under this system. But the Washington pair Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Rep. Dan Newhouse have more to worry about, having received criticism from the state party, censure from local groups and calls for their resignation. Herrera Beutler might benefit from a crowded primary field, though. Three GOP opponents have already said theyll run against her, but theyre all relatively unknown and could split up the anti-incumbent GOP vote. Newhouse, meanwhile, has to deal with GOP state Rep. Brad Klippert, and other Republicans are eyeing the race, too. Still, Newhouses district is Republican enough that it sometimes sends two GOP candidates to the general election, and in that case, Newhouse might win over some Democratic voters because of his impeachment vote. As for the other representative facing a top-two primary, Rep. David Valadao of California seems in considerably less hot water; hes only earned a letter of condemnation and a GOP challenger who last ran for Congress in New Mexico, finishing third in a three-person Republican primary field.

Likewise, western Michigan Reps. Pete Meijer and Fred Upton also have fewer primary concerns. Some local party officials have censured Meijer, but his district committee deadlocked on a censure motion and GOP officials from the largest county in the district didnt rebuke him either. His primary opponents also arent all that serious (yet), as one finished well behind him in 2020 and the other is that activist I mentioned earlier who is most famous for her MAGA wedding dress. Meanwhile, Upton has been censured by local party committees but so far he has attracted only one primary opponent, who received a microscopic share of the vote (0.15 percent) as a write-in candidate in the 2020 general election.

Lastly, New York Rep. John Katko might not have that much to worry about in the primary, but that doesnt mean itll be smooth sailing in the general election. Katko is the one member without a primary challenger so far and hes also avoided an official rebuke from state and local county Republicans, but that doesnt mean he hasnt angered some of his base. Katko won just over 21,000 votes from Conservative Party voters in 2020 about two-thirds of his 35,000-vote margin of victory but his impeachment vote has already prompted a no confidence vote by one Conservative Party county committee in the district and could lose him the partys endorsement in 2022, which could hurt Katkos reelection chances, especially if he faces a strong Democratic challenger.

Its early yet, so its possible these 10 Republicans curry favor with the party faithful in the coming months, but no matter what they do, their House impeachment vote could still cut their political careers short in the 2022 GOP primaries.

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9 Of The 10 House Republicans Who Voted For Impeachment Already Have Primary Challengers - FiveThirtyEight

Democrats and Black advocacy groups are, of course, up in arms and trying to stop the GOP.

We can't know how these changes, if they come to pass, would affect future elections. But by looking at two of the most prominent moves Republicans are trying to make, we can see it's not at all clear that Republicans will succeed in helping their electoral prospects.

Let's take a look at two ways of voting Republicans are trying to limit: vote by mail and early Sunday voting.

Starting with vote by mail, Democrats are upset for a simple reason: they overwhelmingly won no-excuse absentee voting nationally and in Georgia.

The higher use of absentee voting was more a product of the coronavirus pandemic than it was anything else. Democrats are far more likely to fear the virus, while Trump railed against mail voting.

Further, the higher turnout this election likely wasn't because of mail voting. While we'll need more data to confirm this, the network exit polls showed that voters who were of voting age in 2016 and did not vote that year were actually less likely to vote by mail in 2020 (22%) than those who had voted by any method in the previous election (36%). They were far more likely to vote on Election Day in 2020 (49%) than those who had voted in 2016 (32%).

If no-excuse absentee voting were responsible for higher turnout, we would have seen a very large turnout boost between 64- and 65-year-olds in Texas. It didn't happen, according to a study from Stanford University. This finding holds when you control for partisanship.

Voting by mail isn't the only thing Republicans are trying to stop. Not too surprising, they're going after Sunday early voting in the Peach State.

Trump won early voting overall in the state, but Sunday early voting is quite popular with Black voters. They were nearly 10 points more likely to vote early in-person than other days of the week, while Whites were 13 points less likely.

The eventual electorate effect of this move, if implemented, is not certain, however.

Sunday early voters made up only about 72,000 of 5 million votes cast in the election.

We don't know exactly how these groups cast a ballot, but we can estimate. We'll assume those White voters and voters of color who voted early on Sunday voted the same way as those who voted early overall in those demographic groups. With that estimate, Biden's margin would have shrunk by between about 6,000 and 7,000 votes.

This would not have been enough to erase Biden's statewide win of a little less than 12,000.

This doesn't mean that what Republicans are doing in Georgia is right, and it doesn't mean that this time they won't help their chances.

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Why the effects of Republican efforts to limit voting aren't clear - CNN

Since the Democrats reclaimed control of the House of Representatives in 2018, barrels of ink have been spilled on the topic of congressionally-directed spending. Better known as earmarks, this funding mechanism allows Members of Congress to send money directly to projects identified in their districts, largely bypassing the federal bureaucracy and its protracted grant application process. For more than a decade, the Congress has banned the practice of including congressionally-directed funding in spending bills. Now, Democrats in control of both chambers and the White House are poised to bring earmarks back. On March 17th, House Republicans voted to reverse the GOP Conferences ten year-old ban on congressionally directed spending, paving the way for Members from both parties to make requests in upcoming spending and infrastructure bills.

Two distinct varieties of earmarks have emerged in the current Congress, and the process for submitting requests is now taking shape.

Infrastructure

Last week, House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) distributed a letter to his House colleagues regarding his plan for a surface transportation authorization bill expected to move this spring. Though the formal process to submit project requests is slated to be announced later in March, the letter encourages Members of Congress to begin gathering information from around their districts. It also lays out key elements of project submissions to be considered in a highway bill or broader infrastructure package, including:

Community Project Funding

Also last week, House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) announced the Committee would accept requests for Community Project Funding. This followed up on a February memo outlining the requirements for earmark requests in FY22 appropriations bills. Beginning March 29th, the House Appropriations Committee database will be open for Members of Congress to submit Community Project Funding requests. The window will close in mid-April, with different dates and requirements for each Appropriations Subcommittee. While additional guidance from the Subcommittees is forthcoming, we know the basic and critical elements of the process, including:

Both earmark processes are going to have quick turnaround timelines. Members of Congress are already contacting local leaders to understand priorities in the district. Competition for funding will be fierce and not every project on Members wish lists will be funded. Engagement at the local, state, and federal level is crucial.

Members and applicants are going to require education and guidance from those who know how the process has worked in the past since the vast majority of Members of the House took office after the earmark ban was implemented. Moreover, many state and local leaders have not had the benefit of congressionally directed spending during their careers in public service.

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House Republicans Reverse Course on Earmarks, Congressionally Directed Spending is Back - JD Supra

2020 sucked for all of us. But it was really bad for California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

One Senate GOP aide noted that members held press conferences to push back on the bill, but that the capacity to sustain and prosecute an argument through the press wasnt there, in part because of former President Donald Trump.

We were spending the early part of the year dealing with the insurrection and impeachment trial and then we jumped right into passage, the aide said. So the attention of the D.C. media wasnt on this legislation, it was on the fallout of Jan 6.

In the absence of a cohesive strategy from congressional GOP leaders or the party apparatus, individual Republicans like Gingrich and GOP-aligned outside groups were left to mount their own attacks against Bidens American Rescue Plan. Some criticism focused on pet projects within the legislation. Others accused Democrats of using the shadow of a pandemic to expand the welfare state.

This bill was so extreme and so little about it was actually Covid relief, said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, which has accused Democrats of leveraging the latest legislative response to the Covid-19 crisis to advance partisan priorities at the expense of everyday Americans.

But other criticisms of the bill caused headaches. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), likened the bills $5 billion fund for Black farmers to reparations. And after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) slammed Democrats for opposing an amendment that would have excluded prisoners from receiving relief checks, critics were quick to point out that he voted for the second relief package last December despite knowing it contained no provision to stop inmates from receiving such payments.

None of the attack lines seemed to resonate with voters, who began receiving stimulus checks as early as last weekend and appear overwhelmingly supportive of the law. A CBS-YouGov survey released on Sunday showed 71 percent of adults believe the American Rescue Plan will benefit the middle class more than wealthy Americans. The bills passage coincides with an uptick in vaccinations and recognition from Democrats and allied teachers unions that schools need to reopen soon which together have the potential for improving the electoral landscape for Democrats as they try to keep both chambers of the Congress.

Thats left the GOP with little left to do but bank on the possibility that voters will, over time, simply forget the ways in which the law impacted them.

I think once the sugar high of the stimulus checks wears off as much as they are needed and are important the bill is going to sink itself over time, if its remembered at all, said another Senate GOP aide. Its at the peak of its popularity right now and the more it becomes unpopular well pound against them, added another.

Inside the White House, the absence of a sustained GOP pushback to the bill did not come as a particular shock.

Aides had long felt that Biden had the upper hand and that Trump had tied his own party in political knots. The former president had pushed for Congress to pass $2,000 direct checks in December and blasted Republican leaders, like then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, when they declined to include them in a relief package. He had also added trillions of dollars to the deficit through a mix of tax breaks to the wealthy and Covid-related legislation with little pushback from his party. What credible argument could Republicans attempt to put forward that would resonate with Americans and enough Democrats to block the package, Biden aides wondered.

John Anzalone, who worked as chief pollster to the Biden campaign and remains a close outside adviser, said the Republican response was both late and head-scratching. The GOP didnt push back on the bill as a deficit buster. Instead they framed it as unrelated to Covid, which Bidens team felt only alienated voters who directly tied the virus to their economic plights and saw elements of the bill like childcare tax credits and lowering healthcare costs as critical to getting past the pandemic.

This is just really mind-boggling, Anzalone said. At a time that were going through three or four crises at once, they have basically just punted. They've completely punted.

While the White House may have been pleased with the lack of a sustained pushback from Republicans, there were still questions about how to handle it. For many, Bidens pledge to be a unifying president meant that they had to at least show they were trying to win over GOP votes. And, early on, there was some genuine belief that they could get a handful.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), a Biden ally, said he was encouraged when the president sat down with 10 Republicans in the Oval Office in late February. His optimism faded however when the GOP officials, led by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, floated a $600 billion alternative. He believed that the White House would inevitably have to use reconciliation, a budget mechanism that allows for expedited passage of a bill with simple-majority approval.

But I thought what would happen once we were on that pathway is that in the end, for the final vote, that you would get maybe two, three or four Republicans, Casey added. I was not shocked, but I was a little surprised that it was unanimous against it.

Republicans used the flimsiness of Bidens outreach to decry that he had reneged on his pledge to seek a middle ground. But inside the GOP, there were concerns that process arguments werent moving the needle. A third Senate GOP aide argued that the attack lines surrounding the absence of bipartisan outreach went over the heads of most Americans.

We got beat on this one, the aide said, in a blunt assessment of their partys response.

As Republicans complained about the partisan nature of the laws construction, the White House settled on a new talking point: While the bill may not have the support of the GOP in Washington, they contended, it was still bipartisan because it was backed by a growing list of Republican governors and state and local officials who urged its passage.

On that front, they benefited from the polls, which showed healthy GOP support for the measure, and by local Republicans who, in many cases, embraced the cash that would end up flowing to their cities and states. Casey said he was on a call Friday with a bipartisan group of county commissioners. I didn't hear any of them say Hey, we don't need the money, Casey said. I didn't hear any of the (national) Republican arguments.

Asked about Republican critiques that the local government money was effectively a bailout of liberal cities like San Francisco, Jeff Williams, the mayor of Arlington, Texas, said the bill relies on an established and agreed-upon formula the federal government has used for decades.

Williams, a registered Republican, also likened the pandemic to a natural disaster, but instead of leveling homes and hollowing out businesses physically, it took a toll on the localities in an economic sense.

We didn't say it was a bailout for Houston when they suffered the flood here, Williams continued. Same thing for New Orleans when they were flooded in Hurricane Katrina. We didn't say we were bailing New Orleans out. Basically, what we're doing is taking care of a natural disaster and helping our cities, counties and states get back.

With the relief bill nearing passage during the last few weeks, Republicans recentered their messaging once again, this time to the Southern border, where a wave of migrants and unaccompanied children have overwhelmed facilities and created a new political vulnerability for Biden. But those attacks arent meant to damage the relief bill so much as move it out of the political spotlight.

They weren't a month ago thinking oh well, we're going to be rescued by the border, when Republicans voted against the package, Anzalone said. It doesn't absolve them in any way from basically being partisan and politicians in a time of economic emergency.

See more here:
Republicans on Bidens Covid bill: We bungled this one - POLITICO

WASHINGTON (AP) Delegation trips to the border. Apocalyptic warnings. A flurry of news conferences.

Republicans still divided over former President Donald Trumps legacy are seizing on his signature campaign issue, turning their focus to immigration as they try to regain the political upper hand.

Faced with President Joe Bidens early popularity, good news about vaccinations, and Americans embrace of the COVID-19 relief bill Washington Republicans opposed, the GOP is leaning in on the highly charged issue amid a spike in border crossings. They hope immigration can unite the party heading into next years elections, when control of Congress is at stake.

Heading into the midterms, I think that Republicans are increasingly realizing that this can be one of the most potent issues, both to motivate our voters, but equally as important, to appeal to swing voters especially in suburban swing districts who voted for Democrats in 2020, said former Trump aide Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration policies. He said the issue has been a subject of discussion in his recent conversations with lawmakers as child border crossings have surged, straining U.S. facilities.

The situation at the southern border is complex. Since Bidens inauguration, the country has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials, with 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February an increase of 168% and 63% from the month before, according to the Pew Research Center. That creates an enormous logistical challenge, since children, in particular, require higher standards of care and coordination across agencies.

Still, the encounters of both unaccompanied minors and families remain lower than at various points during the Trump administration, including in spring 2019. That May, authorities encountered more than 55,000 migrant children, including 11,500 unaccompanied minors, and around 84,500 migrants traveling in family units.

But that hasnt stopped Republicans from seizing on the issue, led by Trump himself. They blame Biden, who has been deeply critical of Trumps approach, for rolling back many of the former presidents hard-line deterrence policies. And they liken Bidens new, kinder tone to an invitation to would-be border crossers.

Theyre destroying our country. People are coming in by the hundreds of thousands, warned Trump in an interview Tuesday night with Fox News Channel. And, frankly, our country cant handle it. It is a crisis like we have rarely had and, certainly, we have never had on the border.

Its more than a crisis. This is a human heartbreak, said House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who led a delegation of a dozen fellow House Republicans to El Paso, Texas, on Monday.

This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration, he said.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a potential 2024 presidential candidate who is planning to lead his own Senate delegation tour to the Texas-Mexico border next Friday, accused the administration of having, in effect, issued an invitation for unaccompanied children to come to this country.

Even Sen. Mitt Romney, one of Trumps most prominent Republican critics, faulted Bidens moves, including the halting of construction of Trumps signature border wall project.

Whats happening at our southern border is a real crisis, and the Administration is making it worse by unlawfully freezing border wall funding appropriated by Congress, Romney tweeted after signing onto a letter with 39 other Republican senators criticizing the new approach to the border.

Democrats and immigration activists see it differently. They deride the policies Trump implemented to deter asylum as cruel and inhumane and an abdication of the countrys humanitarian responsibilities. That includes the decision to forcibly separate more than 3,000 children from their parents, with no system in place to reunite them.

But policies like Remain in Mexico, which forced asylum seekers to wait across the border as their cases were being adjudicated, and the expulsion of unaccompanied children were effective, and the number of migrants crossing the southern border declined precipitously, further slowed by the pandemic.

Beds were taken offline and staff downsized even as immigration experts on both sides of the aisle and career Homeland Security officials cautioned the numbers would likely begin to rise again once the pandemic subsided.

Advocates also note that apprehensions of single adults have been spiking since April 2020, long before Trump left office. And they accuse the last administration of enacting policies that clogged the immigration system making it take longer to move people through the system and failing to build capacity when numbers began rising. Biden transition officials, for instance, urged the outgoing administration to increase capacity, but were met with inaction. Miller said career officials theyd chosen to work with the incoming administration warned numbers would rise exponentially if policies were reversed.

This was purposeful. They made it harder for the process to work efficiently ... theres no question, said Peter Boogaard of FWD.us, a pro-immigration reform group. The Trump administration did everything in their power for four years to make the already broken immigration system as cumbersome and ineffective as possible. And once they lost, they went out of their way to do as little as humanly possible to make sure the next administration was set up to succeed on this at all.

In an interview with ABC News George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday, Biden defended his handling of the situation. He said his administration was working with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to add more bed space, putting together new systems for connecting arriving children with relatives already in the country, and setting up a system for people to apply for asylum in their own countries.

In the meantime, he urged those considering the journey to stay put. Yes, I can say quite clearly: Dont come over, he said. Dont leave your town or city or community.

In the meantime, Republicans see Biden as boxed-in politically, with limited options for dealing with the border.

The administration has said that basically, everything that we did you name the policy ... they said that all of them are fill-in-the-blank adjective. Theyve described them in the most incendiary and condemnatory fashion possible, said Miller. And obviously my view is, of course, the opposite. But the point that Im making is when you do that you give yourself no room to adjust course. ... You leave yourself nowhere to go.

Theyre kind of stuck in a corner, agreed Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies think tank, which advocates on behalf of more restrictive immigration policies. Because Biden ran as the anti-Trump, he argued, the president has few options for deterring future migrants.

And thats why youre seeing so much glee, in some respect, he said. It is a kind of delicious irony that Bidens having to reopen detention centers that Trump had closed because he succeeded in shutting down the traffic.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a longtime Trump ally, said he expects the border to become a top issue if the numbers continue to grow.

If they dont control this, itll be a huge issue this year, and its an issue that gets you into public health, into the issue of defending America and whether there are borders, he said.

___ Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

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Republicans seize on immigration as border crossings surge - The Associated Press