Sen. Dean Heller has carefully avoided endorsing a politically unpopular Republican health care bill.
But, with the two sitting next to each other at a White House lunch Wednesday, President Donald Trump suggested Heller would face much graver consequences if he opposes a last-ditch effort to pass that bill. Doing so, Trump said, would amount to “telling America that you’re fine with Obamacare.”
“Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?” Trump said of Heller.
The Nevada senator is among the most endangered Republicans headed into the 2018 midterm elections. And Trump’s comment was an acknowledgment of the peril facing the GOP if it fails to deliver on its seven-year promise of repealing former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Already facing an energized Democratic opposition, Republicans are now confronting the prospect of a deeply disappointed conservative base that has watched the party fall short on health care despite controlling the House, Senate and presidency.
In recent days and weeks, Trump has repeatedly claimed that if Republicans did nothing, voters would continue to punish Democrats over Obamacare. But his moment with Heller was a much different message.
In the first six months of Trump’s presidency, the party has confirmed Neil Gorsuch as a Supreme Court justice. But it has achieved none of its other major promises.
Asked how he would explain the defeat of health care to frustrated Republican voters, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week: “Well, we have a new Supreme Court justice. We have 14 repeals of regulations. And we’re only six months into it. Last time I looked, Congress goes on for two years.”
Republican lawmakers who opposed the House and Senate bills gambled that voters would punish the party less for passing no bill at all than for passing an unpopular one.
But other lawmakers and strategists say the party hasn’t done enough with its majorities to keep voters engaged.
“The fact is, the American people expect us to move three or four big issues like health care, like tax reform,” said Rep. Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, the Republican who was central to crafting the House’s health care bill.
“If we fail on those things, I don’t care how many singles we hit — it’s not going to be enough,” MacArthur said.
For Republicans in the Senate, the window for major accomplishment is narrowing rapidly.
The 2018 midterms should be a banner year, with 10 Democrats in states Trump won in 2016 up for re-election and making for ripe targets, while only two Republicans — Heller and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake — appear to be in serious jeopardy.
But after 2018 comes a much more difficult 2020 cycle, in which Republicans will be defending twice as many seats as Democrats, including some in swing states — such as Maine Sen. Susan Collins (if she doesn’t run for governor), Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.
“When we ran for election we told our supporters, our voters, that we were going to repeal Obamacare and replace it (with) something better,” Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson told CNN. “And I think we take that commitment very seriously.”
On the House side, the sense of urgency comes from Democrats’ sense that the 24 seats they need to take control of the chamber could be within reach in 2018.
Causing further alarm for Republicans: A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 52% of registered voters want Democrats to control the next Congress, while just 38% want Republicans to remain in charge.
Facing their failure on Capitol Hill, Republicans have increasingly attempted to shift the terms of the health care debate by seizing on a measure Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders soon plans to introduce that would shift the United States toward a single-payer “Medicare for all” system.
Their hope: Republicans can convince voters to look past their own failure by attacking Obamacare’s effectiveness and posit that Democrats would go much farther in remaking the nation’s health system.
The silver lining in the Post-ABC poll for the GOP is that their voters remain more engaged in non-presidential cycles than Democratic voters.
The poll found that 72% of adults who strongly approve of Trump and 65% who identify themselves as Republicans say they are likely to vote in the midterm elections, compared to 57% of Democrats.
Still, Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel signed an email to supporters Wednesday that took aim at some fellow Republicans. The subject line: “Not what you voted for…”
In it, she complained that “some in the Senate are refusing to even put a simple repeal bill on (Trump’s) desk.”
“As your RNC Chairwoman, it’s my job to represent you, fight for you, and make sure your voice is heard loud and clear,” Romney McDaniel said. “That’s why I’ve gone on TV to say that if our elected officials don’t pass what you voted for, we could lose the midterm elections.”