Never mind the middle. As the drama between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and hardline conservatives roils the House, Democratic leaders are watching with total fascination and giddiness.
For years, their own caucus has fallen in line behind a masterful political tactician who bent over backwards to protect her most vulnerable members, and by extension, her majority, often steam-rolling progressives in the process. (Yes, we’re speaking of the one and only Nancy Pelosi.) Now, as Democrats see it, McCarthy is doing the exact opposite to protect his own gavel — and playing right into their hands.
Since becoming speaker, McCarthy has exposed his “majority makers” to votes on steep cuts to federal programs that benefit millions of Americans and, just last week, the reversal of a Biden administration rule that cracks down on a gun accessory used in several recent mass shootings. Both were priorities of the hard right and exposed members in swing districts to Democratic attacks.
And despite plenty of evidence that swing voters have sprinted toward Democrats in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, House Republicans have advanced multiple new abortion restrictions that could reach the floor later this Congress, including an appropriations rider tightening access to the abortion drug mifepristone.
The DCCC is already targeting the so-called “Biden 18,” Republican members from districts that the president carried in 2020. Earlier this spring, the group posted billboards in a dozen competitive districts that blasted vulnerable Republicans for refusing to push back on Donald Trump’s demands that the House defund law enforcement agencies investigating him.