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For months, Senate Republicans have been working with Democrats on a deal they have described as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a conservative border security bill, and for weeks, they have hinted that they are tantalizingly close to an agreement.

Their timing could not be worse.

As former President Donald J. Trump moves closer to becoming his partys presidential nominee and Republican lawmakers consolidate behind him, he is wielding a heavier hand than any time since leaving office over his partys agenda in Congress. His vocal opposition to the emerging border compromise has all but killed the measures chances in a divided Congress as he puts his own hard-line immigration policies once again at the center of his presidential campaign.

His shadow has always loomed large over the Republican-controlled House, which has opened congressional investigations to defend him, launched an impeachment inquiry into his chief rival and approved legislation to reinstate the hard-line immigration policies he imposed. But as Mr. Trump barrels toward the partys 2024 nomination, his influence on the legislative agenda on Capitol Hill is expanding.

His America First approach to foreign policy already helped to sap G.O.P. support for sending aid to Ukraine for its war against Russian aggression, placing the fate of that money in doubt. That led Republicans to demand a border crackdown in exchange for any further funding for Kyiv, a compromise that Mr. Trump has now repudiated. He frequently consults with the inexperienced Speaker Mike Johnson, weighing in on policy and politics. And his uncompromising approach has emboldened copycat politicians in Congress, like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, who are helping to drive an ongoing impasse over government spending.

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Trump Strengthens Grip on Capitol Hill as He Presses Toward Nomination - The New York Times

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a primary election night party after his win in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. Matt Rourke/AP hide caption

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a primary election night party after his win in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.

Nikki Haley is continuing to lean hard into one particular argument in her stump speech: electability.

"Republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. That's nothing to be proud of," the former U.N. ambassador has told crowds in Iowa, New Hampshire and now South Carolina, before boasting of a December Wall Street Journal poll that found her 17 points ahead of Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup.

The argument failed in the first two voting contests, now that Haley has lost to Trump by more than 30 points in Iowa and, a smaller margin, but still double-digits in New Hampshire.

Moreover, polls show that voters just don't care that much about electability. Entrance polls showed that only 14% of Iowa GOP caucusgoers said a candidate's ability to defeat Biden was their top factor in choosing. Meanwhile, 41% chose someone who "shared their values."

Similarly, in New Hampshire exit polls, the same percentage of Republican primary voters, 14%, ranked the ability to defeat Joe Biden as their top priority. Choosing a candidate who "fights for people like me" garnered the top choice of 31% of those voters, while shared values was most important to another 30%.

All of this might surprise anyone who paid attention to the last presidential election. In 2020, Democratic voters badly wanted Trump out of office and were therefore obsessed with nominating a presidential candidate who was electable someone who could defeat Trump.

This year, Republican voters also badly want to defeat Joe Biden, but many say electability isn't a big factor for them. And the reasons for that are complicated.

Concerns about electability vary greatly by election. For example, voters who want to move on from a two-term presidency in the opposing party as with Democrats in 2008 might about something other than electability (in the case of 2008 Democrats, that something was "change").

Similarly, voting a sitting president out of office can raise the salience of electability. In 2012, when Republicans were eager to vote Obama out of office, a plurality of both Iowa Republican caucusgoers and New Hampshire Republican primary voters said electability was their top concern.

Still, the parties generally have different attitudes toward electability, says Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State University.

"Republicans do not perceive a tradeoff between rallying the base and winning a general election, whereas Democrats do perceive that tradeoff," he said.

One possible reason why, Grossmann said, is that Republicans correctly perceive America's conservative bent more Americans consider themselves conservative than liberal.

But Grossmann adds that the cause and effect of electability is complicated.

"The candidate that you support influences who you think is electable. So most people will choose their candidate and then say that candidate is more electable."

Similarly, a candidate who works hard to bill themselves as electable will attract voters who care about that quality.

Republican presidential candidate former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at a New Hampshire primary night rally, in Concord, N.H., on Tuesday. Steven Senne/AP hide caption

Republican presidential candidate former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at a New Hampshire primary night rally, in Concord, N.H., on Tuesday.

Barbara Grieb is one of those voters. She went to see Haley last week in Rochester, N.H.

"I think that even Democrats, women Democrats, are ready for a woman in the White House," she said. She added: "A win is important. And I think that's why I am eliminating President Trump because. I just don't think he's got the likability, obviously, from Democrats."

One complicating factor this year is that many Republicans see Joe Biden as a particularly weak candidate, so they don't need to worry about electability.

It is true that Biden is unpopular his net approval is at around negative 16 points. But he's not at all sure to lose.

Many head-to-head polls show Trump and Biden about even with each other, or Trump with a slight advantage. Head-to-head polls between Haley and Biden also don't show either with a clear lead.

Which reveals another important point: neither Haley nor Trump appears to have a clear electability advantage right now.

Trump introduces two potential other confounding factors to the electability equation this year. One is that as the last Republican president, he's essentially running as a Republican incumbent.

And along with that, he brings his feverishly devoted followers. And even if some of them briefly glanced at other candidates, many came home to Trump in the end. Peggy Hutchison is one she went to a Trump rally the day before the Iowa caucuses in bitterly cold weather. She was wearing a Trump t-shirt more specifically, a shirt emblazoned with the Punisher logo wearing Trump's distinctive yellow coif. She said she had been to eight Trump rallies. And also...

"I was at January sixth also. But I didn't go in [to the Capitol]. I was there," she said.

"I left when I could tell it was getting out of hand," she added with a laugh.

Hutchison had gone to events for two other Republican candidates Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. But she explained why she decided on Trump.

"His platform," she said. "I haven't heard anything that he stands for that I don't stand for."

I asked her specifically about electability. She said that while she thinks Trump will defeat Biden, that didn't play into her decision at all. She simply has liked Trump since 2015.

In addition, Trump's lie that he won the 2020 election also plays into how Trump voters think about electability this year. Pat McGee went out to see Trump in Portsmouth. Why did she plan to vote for him?

"He knows what to do and he knows who to do it to," she said. "He knows which people to trust and which people are RINOs which people to pick that would be in his cabinet and support."

I asked her: is she confident that if he's the nominee, Trump can defeat Biden?

"He will. Yeah," she said.

I pointed out that Trump lost to Biden in 2020. McGee made a skeptical face.

"He didn't lose."

To the degree that Trump voters think he's electable, that perception is fueled by Trump's lie about the 2020 election. Convince voters you've never lost, and you might sound like the most electable candidate around.

Excerpt from:
Electability is all Democrats discussed in 2020. In 2024, Republicans don't care - NPR

Its sometimes argued that Democrats too are unreasonable on immigration; that they refuse to accept restrictions that are politically and substantively imperative. Its true that any compromise would have to include new restrictions on asylum (my preferred deal would trade that for legalization of some undocumented immigrants living here and expanded legal pathways for entry). Its also true that some on the left would reject such a deal.

But now that Republicans are balking at the compromise on the table, simply because Trump is instructing them to, it cannot be denied that the right is the primary obstacle to any reasonable compromise on this issue.

Underscoring the point, Trump has been telling Republicans to sink the deal so that he can fix immigration if elected again. Its worth remembering that Trump was already president once, and guess what: He too released a lot of migrants into the interior, and he couldnt pass his immigration agenda even with unified GOP control. But that aside, what he really means is this: Republicans must reject any deal that improves the system in ways both sides can accept, because the public might like it, closing off any chance at exploiting the current challenges to push his own wildly extreme agenda.

Continued here:
Trump Forces Terrified Republicans to Bend the Knee Yet Again - The New Republic

In September 2021, Texas governor Greg Abbott boldly claimed that his states barbaric abortion law, which banned the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy with no exceptions for incest or rape, was not actually as bad as it sounded because he was going to eliminate rape. Rape is a crime and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets, Abbott said, in all seriousness.

Not surprisingly, Abbott did not eliminate rape. But nine months after his absurd attempt to explain why it was perfectly reasonable to force sexual assault victims in his state to carry their pregnancies to term, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and a whole bunch other states also banned abortion without exceptions. And guess what? Rapeand rape that resulted in pregnancykept happening in those places too.

Just how many people have been raped and impregnated in states where, thanks to politicians like Abbott, the law prohibits them from terminating the pregnancy? According to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, an absolutely staggering number:

In the 14 states that implemented total abortion bans following the Dobbs decision, we estimated that 519,981 completed rapes were associated with 64,565 pregnancies during the four to 18 months that bans were in effect. Of these, an estimated 5,586 rape-related pregnancies (9%) occurred in states with rape exceptions, and 58,979 (91%) in states with no exception, with 26,313 (45%) in Texas.

The study, which was led by the medical director at Planned Parenthood of Montana, also revealed that 10 or fewer legal abortions occurred monthly in each of the total abortion ban states, which indicates that persons who have been raped and become pregnant cannot access legal abortions in their home state, even in states with rape exceptions. Which, of course, is exactly what the politicians who championed, voted for, and signed these abortion bans wanted. As JAMAs editors write in a note about the study, Whether these survivors of rape had illegal abortions, received medication abortion through the mail, traveled to other states, or carried the child to birth is unknown.

In which a male Republican claims to be an expert on womens health care because he was a vet

Thousands of words, all the best words

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In States Where Republicans Banned Abortion With No Exception for Rape, Rape Led to 58979 Pregnancies Post-Roe - Vanity Fair

The National Republican Congressional Committee has sought to tie Hochuls budget to Suozzi, a moderate who is running for the Queens and Long Island district he once held and left vacant by the expulsion of Republican George Santos.

Tom Suozzi needs to answer whether he agrees with Hochuls budget cuts to schools in order to clean up their border crisis, NRCC spokesperson Savannah Viar said in a statement. Extreme Democrats like Suozzi are the reason were in this mess to begin with.

State-level policies have been successfully wielded in recent election cycles by Republicans in key races. The tactic has been a frustrating one for Democrats, especially those running in House races where the office being sought has little to no impact on the decisions of state government.

But the attacks have worked: GOP House candidates in 2022 successfully blasted criminal justice policies approved in Albany, including a controversial law that ended cash bail requirements for many criminal charges.

Republicans are defending four seats flipped that year on Long Island as well as in the Hudson Valley two areas of the state that concerns over migrants and school funding could be especially persuasive for suburban voters.

Cutting school aid which could happen if Hochul gets her way to recraft the distribution formula is one of the third rails of local politics. The school funding fight was an unexpected wrench in Democrats hopes of a relatively quiet year in Albany in a critical election year.

Its an effective attack because the suburbs always believe New York City is screwing them, Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf said. New York City is getting everything and theyre getting nothing. Its a clear example for a lot of people, and the Republicans will be able to use it.

And the Feb. 13 special election between Suozzi and Republican candidate Mazi Pilip will be an early show of strength for either party in the bellwether suburbs.

Suozzi, in a brief interview, called the attack political talk.

People are sick and tired of the politics, he said. People are sick and tired of fighting. Stop with the BS.

In a statement, Suozzis campaign called for a compromise between Republicans and Democrats to strengthen border security. He blamed the federal government for having dropped the ball on immigration putting our state and local governments in an awful position.

New York Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs, an ally to both Suozzi and Hochul, doubted the Republican criticism would work or that the message would land with voters.

Its what you would expect, and I think the Republicans ought to work a little harder and come up with things that are more relevant with what you do as a member of Congress, Jacobs said in an interview. I think voters are too sophisticated. They know nonsense when they see it.

GOP House candidate Mazi Pilip is knocking more funding for migrants in the state budget and potentially less for schools. | Adam Gray/Getty Images

Suozzi has sought to lay out a plan to address the influx of migrants, including support for border security measures and funding immigration enforcement agencies like ICE. His campaign this week released a TV ad highlighting his support for stronger immigration enforcement.

Suozzis campaign, in response, also pointed to discrepancies in Pilips federal and county financial disclosure forms. Senior advisor Kim Devlin said it raised serious questions about a lack of vetting by Republicans. Pilip campaign spokesperson Brian Devane called the attacks a mischaracterization.

And Democrats are also quick to point out the nuance of Hochuls budget a wide-ranging and complicated fiscal plan.

Her budget would raise education spending overall by more than $800 million, but also changes how the state sends direct aid to school districts by taking enrollment reductions into account. The move would lead to $167 million in spending cuts to more than half of the states 673 school districts.

The additional $500 million in spending for the migrant crisis, which part of a $2.4 billion plan that includes money for emergency shelters and legal services, is coming from a surplus pot of money unrelated to school aid.

Hochul has defended the proposal as necessary, given the outdated way in which schools are funded by the state. Many of the schools impacted have millions of dollars in surplus accounts.

For us to be wed to the same formulas based on population from 2008 without adjusting for either need or population increase or decrease simply doesnt make sense, she told reporters last week.

On Thursday, Hochul again blasted Republicans.

The truth is on our side. Tom Suozzi is speaking the truth about whats going on, she told reporters. Again, its politics. Its a shame theyre distorting the truth, but thats par for the course with Republicans.

Democratic state lawmakers have rebuked the school funding plan and have urged her to reverse it. A final budget is not due until April 1.

Still, the approach has frustrated Democrats in Washington and Albany given the high stakes of the election year. Some Democrats hoped Hochuls agenda this year would, at worst, have no impact on the key House races for the party.

All the more awkward is the past animosity between Hochul and Suozzi, who left his House seat in 2022 to run against the governor unsuccessfully in a Democratic primary. Both Democrats publicly set aside their differences late last year before Suozzi launched his bid for his old seat.

But Suozzis campaign is not the only one to face questions over Hochuls budget.

Republican Reps. Anthony DEsposito, Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro have all blasted the proposals and pounded their opponents.

Alison Esposito, the Republican challenging Democrat Pat Ryan in the Hudson Valley, accused Hochul of putting the needs of New Yorkers second to migrants.

If she truly wanted to fix the migrant crisis, she would have ended New Yorks sanctuary status, instead our students are paying the price of her failures, her campaign said in a statement.

Ryan, a first-term lawmaker whose seat is a target to flip this year, pointed to a range of immigration and border security proposals hes backed with GOP lawmakers, but have been bottled up by House Republican leadership.

Its cynical, disappointing, and everything thats wrong with American politics, he said. Its time to come together as patriots, put country ahead of party and deliver for the Hudson Valley.

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Why Hochul's budget is a headache for Suozzi - POLITICO