WASHINGTON (AP) — House leaders sent lawmakers home for summer campaigning after one of the rockiest sessions in recent memory as voters decide which party to put in power in Congress for the remainder of President Donald Trump's term.
For those seeking to stay in office, particularly the newest members, it can be a tough sell.
“I only know a dysfunctional Congress,” said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a freshman from Virginia.
The Democrat said it's best to
campaign on his own record delivering for constituents, rather than on the performance of Congress, as his party tries to wrest control from the Republicans.
“It's virtually impossible to sell the performance of Congress to the American people because Congress is such an easy punching bag,” he said. “And this particular Congress has been ceding too much of its authority to the executive branch.”
He said, “I tell people to sell yourself and what you've tried to do.”
Yet Republican Rep. Brandon Gill, a freshman from Texas who has emerged as one of the party's rising figures, particularly on Trump's hard-line immigration enforcement agenda, argued there's plenty to show to voters back home.
“We've gotten a lot done,” he said
“Cutting taxes across the board, over $100 billion for border security, repealing half the Green New Deal, the biggest mandatory spending reform in history — pretty historic stuff,” he said.
“Everybody always wants Congress to move faster than it does, but we’ve been extremely productive.”
Control of Congress is often an afterthought in presidential election years when the White House is at stake. But in the midterms, when lawmakers face voters as they will this fall, the races largely become a referendum on the party in power.
Republicans have history against running against them, as the president's party often encounters losses during the midterm elections — a “thumping,” as George W. Bush put it, a “shellacking” as Barack Obama said — and a pendulum nation swings.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is about to embark on a cross-country trek to raise millions of dollars for his party and visit lawmakers' home districts, remains bullish that Republicans will not only keep their House majority control — but grow their numbers.
“This week we continued to deliver for the people, and we're going to continue that straight through the end of this year,” Johnson said after a flurry of legislating before sending lawmakers home for summer.
Republicans in a single day adopted a budget resolution seeking $95 billion for the Iran war and other priorities; advanced a $1 trillion Pentagon bill renaming it the Department of War; and approved legislation to clamp down on stock trading in Congress, all over Democratic objections.
“We're going to run through the tape,” Johnson said.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if his party wins control, will launch “100 Days of Action” on Sunday as he works to take the majority and impose a check on Trump's White House.
“It's not going to be easy, right?” Jeffries told reporters. “No one's going to give it to us. We have to take it in a way that is consistent with the values of the American people.”
With its 435 seats being contested, control of the House often narrows to the tiniest slice of the country.
Fewer than 20 seats are considered genuine toss-ups, according to analysts. The rest are considered safer seats, drawn with map lines designed to favor one party over the other — including new maps still being drawn to eliminate Black majority districts largely in the Deep South after a landmark Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act.
Millions of dollars are being spent that will make the difference between a return of the GOP majority eyeing more budget cuts or a new Democratic agenda that is expected to launch vast oversight and investigations into the Trump administration.
Even as he openly pines for a normal Congress, Johnson believes the country needs a steady hand at the wheel as he partners with the White House on Trump’s priorities — and fend off Democratic investigations and the threat of impeachment.
“We are increasingly confident that we will hold and grow this majority in the House — and we must,” he said.
Democrats under Jeffries make the case that Trump and the Republicans in charge have done nothing for Americans struggling with high costs of living. Instead, they say Trump waged war against Iran that sent gas prices soaring, slapped tariffs on goods that are spiking prices, deported longtime immigrants and slashed health care and food aid as part of Trump's big tax cuts bill last summer.
“They're flailing all over the place,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries vowed that Democrats “will hold the crooks accountable” on a number of issues, including the Trump family's business dealings.
Johnson raises the specter of a mid-20th-century-style communist threat if Democrats win control with a new generation of far-left progressive candidates, some backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
“We have been saying that this is an election that’s shaping up as a contest between common sense and crazy,” he said. Now, he said, it's “common sense versus communism.”
Jeffries brushes past such warnings as unserious. “House Democrats aren't a cult,” he said, a criticism his party often lobs at Trump's backers in Congress. “We're a coalition of people, public servants, who are committed to getting things done.”
One of the newest lawmakers, Rep. James Gallagher, R-Calif., said he's just trying to focus on the issues important to constituents back home.
“We're in a time where there's a lot of division, unfortunately,” he said. “And I think one key is like, Hey, trying to bring people together to solve problems for Americans, right?”
