Washington Wednesday - Turmoil in the GOP

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday, May 19th, 2021.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up, a shakeup within the top ranks of the GOP.

Last week, House Republicans ousted Liz Cheney as Conference Chair, replacing her with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

At the heart of that change: a rift over the party’s relationship with former President Trump.

Congresswoman Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, makes no apologies for her criticism of Trump. She said Republicans cannot remain silent about his continued claims that the last election was stolen.

CHENEY: What’s happening right now with Donald Trump and his continued attacks on the Constitution and the rule of law is dangerous, and we all have an obligation to stand up against that.

EICHER: But many Republicans feel that continuing to butt heads with Trump, and by extension his supporters could be a recipe for disaster in next year’s midterm elections.

REICHARD: The conference chair is the No. 3 party leader in the chamber. And that person is responsible for the House GOP’s messaging. Republicans decided Liz Cheney was too busy bashing Trump and not taking on the current president.

Enter Elise Stefanik.

STEFANIK: Voters want to hear the issues that matter to them. So right now we have an economic crisis. We have an energy crisis, we have a border crisis, and a national security crisis.

REICHARD: The 36-year-old New York lawmaker says on the issues Republicans are united, and the issues are what they’ll focus on ahead of the next election.

Joining us now with more insight on all of this is Kyle Kondik. He is Director of Communications at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. Good morning, Kyle!

KONDIK: Good morning!

REICHARD: With regard to Liz Cheney, from what I gather, there were efforts behind closed doors to get her to sort of let it lie and back off from her rift with Donald Trump. What is your understanding of how that played out behind the scenes?

KONDIK: Well, whatever happened behind the scenes, it was clear that she wanted to continue to make the case against the former president publicly and also to talk about what happened on January 6. And, look, I think that what happened on January 6 has made a lot of the Republican leadership uncomfortable. They think that it makes them look bad. And ultimately, I think that they just want to, they want to try to move on from that because they'd rather be talking about things that make Democrats uncomfortable. And so I think that that kind of is is a big reason why Cheney was able to survive her keeping her post earlier this year, but but now she has lost it.

REICHARD: Okay. What can you tell us about the new No. 3 GOP leader in the House? Why did Republicans choose Elise Stefanik and what does she bring to the table politically?

KONDIK: Yeah, Stefanik. She first won in 2014, so she's been around for a little while, but she's still on on the younger side. She represents New York's North Country, which is actually a district that voted for Barack Obama, but then switched to Trump. And like a lot of kind of, maybe a little bit more rural, whiter places that also are kind of more blue collar, Donald Trump did really well in those kinds of places, in the northeast and the Midwest.

And so I think she's someone who was sort of known as a little bit more of a moderate or—you know, I mean, there aren't there aren't really true moderates in American politics these days on either Democratic or the Republican side. But she has voted against her party on certain issues, just like a lot of other Northeastern Republicans have done, but she has kind of morphed into more of a strong supporter of Trump after she was kind of tepid on him in the lead up to the 2016 elections. So I think she kind of got the sense as to which way the wind was blowing both in her district and also in her party. And she sort of changed her tune to reflect that. But I think she's someone who I think Republican leaders had always looked at as being someone who could potentially be in leadership in the future. It's just the future is now because of what happened with Liz Cheney.

REICHARD: Now, to your point about Stefanik’s more moderate record. She has voted with Democrats on some controversial bills, like the Equality Act for example, correct?

KONDIK: Yeah, and she's voted against Republican leaders on some other issues, too. And in fact, there were some members of the Republican caucus who wanted to go with someone else who was more outwardly conservative on certain issues. Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, who is someone who has been close with with Ted Cruz in the past. Roy, who ran against her but ended up losing to Stefanik in a race for the job that was not particularly close. But I think it just goes to show that, you know, you could make a case against Stefanik on issues and say, "Well, maybe she's not conservative enough. But she's loyal to the former president, and Liz Cheney is not." And I think that's the probably the most important litmus test right now in the Republican Party.

REICHARD: Most Republican lawmakers are not on board with former President Trump’s assertion that the last election was stolen, but they’re not renouncing him in the way that Cheney has.
So just looking at the raw political reality of this, do Republican leaders have a tightrope to walk right now—trying to appeal to moderate voters but not alienating Trump’s supporters?

KONDIK: Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think that Republicans look at the Trump experience, and, you know, it didn't go as poorly electorally as maybe I think they would have thought in 2016. Of course, you know, Trump was a one term president and lost in 2020. But, you know, he did better than I guess the poll suggested in both 2016 and 2020. There were a lot of new people who came into the electorate, both to vote against Trump but also to vote for Trump. And, you know, as the Republicans look ahead to the 2022 midterms, they want to keep enthusiasm high amongst the new Trump voters but also try to win back some of their former voters in suburban areas. And so this is why they're engaging in this kind of awkward dance in which they maybe don't sound exactly like Trump, but they also aren't going against Trump either.

REICHARD: How much sway does the former president have in the party right now?

KONDIK: Trump I think continues to have a lot of sway within the Republican Party. I think his endorsement is very valuable in a primary setting or at least it's perceived as being valuable. You have these, you know, the President continues to have a voice in politics, although I will say that he does not—I don't think he's getting the kind of attention that he got when he was president or even as a candidate, because he's been banned from the social media platforms, most notably Twitter. And so, you know, it's possible that over time, his influence within the party will wane. But certainly Republican elected officials are not acting as though his influence has waned. And I think, you know, he does still have an important role in the party, whether you like that or you don't.

REICHARD: So as it stands right now, what are the GOP’s chances of retaking the House in 2022?

KONDIK: I mean, look, history points very clearly that the Republicans should win the house in 2022. The president's party almost always loses ground in the House and midterm elections, and the Republicans only need to pick up—win five more seats than they won in 2020 to win the House. Also, it's a redistricting year, and the census has been delayed, so that process is going to start later than it usually does. But if you just kind of go state by state and look at who controls redistricting in what places, the Republicans have more line-drawing power overall than Democrats do. So it may just be basically just through redistricting that Republicans could end up netting, you know, five or more seats.
And that doesn't even take into account, whether it'll be a you know, it could potentially be a bad environment for Democrats, as it often is for the President's party in a midterm. So, you know, I think that they have—the Republicans have a lot of advantages in the race for the House.

The race for the Senate, I think, is more competitive, a little bit murkier. It’s a 50/50 Senate right now, so the Republicans just need one seat to flip the Senate. But arguably the most vulnerable seat held by either party is Pennsylvania, which is a Republican held seat. And it's an open seat, Republican Pat Toomey is retiring. And, you know, Democrats probably have roughly even odds at this point to win Pennsylvania. There are competitive seats on on both sides of the aisle. You know, Democrats are defending Arizona and Georgia, which they won in special elections in 2020. And those new senators will have to run again in 2022. Democrats are also defending Nevada and New Hampshire, which are competitive states. But Republicans are defending Pennsylvania, open seat North Carolina—which is a competitive state, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, open seat in Ohio, open seat in Missouri, Marco Rubio in Florida. So there are, you know, there's kind of an equal number of roughly equal number of plausible targets on both sides.

And, you know, the midterm jinx sometimes applies stronger in the House than it does in the Senate. You know, we just saw in 2018, granted on a, on a map where they had a lot of targets, but Republicans actually ended up netting seats in the Senate in 2018, even as they were losing the house. So you do sometimes see kind of split decisions. But bottom line is, is that, you know, the Republicans are, I think, favored to win the house. And I mean, the Senate is, you know, is probably a toss up. So the, you know, taking control of Congress, both chambers is certainly on the table there for Republicans in 2022. And I think it helps explain why Republicans kind of, they don't want to focus on things that they perceive as being negative for them and talking about January 6th. I think they perceive that as politically negative for them.

REICHARD: Last question here Kyle: I saw some speculation that while Cheney’s stance cost her a leadership role in the House, it might benefit her long-term political goals, including running for president. Do you think that’s part of her strategy here?

KONDIK: Ah, you know, I, it could be, you know. She's gonna continue to have a big platform, but I just, I just don't think even in a 2024 context, that there's going to be a real healthy desire for an avowedly anti-Trump candidate. And I also think that Trump, you know, in some ways he ran against previous Republican leaders. And, you know, one of those leaders—I don’t think he really talked about this much—but one of the previous leaders of the Republican party that I think Trump was in a sense running against was Dick Cheney, the former vice president, who I think had a really important role in in George W. Bush era foreign policy. You know, Trump was talking about, you know, the Iraq war is a mistake. I mean, Cheney was one of the main architects of the Iraq war. And I think there may be you know, that there's a lot of Republicans who agree with Trump on that. And so beyond the Trump criticism, it may also be that Cheney, Liz Cheney represents a wing of the Republican party that's essentially in decline.

REICHARD: Kyle Kondik with the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Kyle, appreciate your insight. Thanks so much!

KONDIK: Thank you.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.