Bitter infighting among House Republicans threatens to force several members from office as Republicans rush into incumbent primaries against the best advice of their own party leaders.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) was the last Republican to support John McGuire, the primary rival of Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), after Good endorsed it Bacon’s biggest challenger, Dan Frei, last month. A handful of other Republican lawmakers and prominent political groups have also endorsed McGuire.
Meanwhile, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has thrown his full weight behind Brandon Herrera, who is challenging Rep. Tony Gonzales (R) in South Texas — underscoring how deep-rooted resentments are taking a toll on the party’s already narrow majority .
While there is some bickering among members in sheltered red districts, it is also spreading to other corners, such as Gonzales’ seat, potentially putting those areas in play for Democrats in the fall.
“If you’re after me. I’m going to come back twice as hard — as hard as I can, and I think it should be a lesson,” Bacon told The Hill. “That’s not what we want to do. I think…it causes dysfunction. I feel like this is bad for Speaker Johnson, but there have to be consequences for bad behavior.”
House Republicans have been embroiled in feuds and infighting since the early days of their GOP majority.
It started with conservative holdouts who forced 15 electoral votes just days into the fresh Congress before ultimately electing the former representative. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as speaker — a byproduct of the narrow GOP majority that gave defectors significant influence over their party.
The disputes spilled into the public eye, particularly after a group of Republicans ousted McCarthy last October — leveraging some of the same negotiations they had had with McCarthy to later oust him — leading to weeks of uncertainty about what would happen next The GOP’s path in the House led to a plethora of early retirements and even more headaches even after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) won the gavel.
The infighting is now spilling into more personal territory as House Republicans are pitting themselves against each other in the primaries, despite Johnson’s attempts to quell the dispute.
Good — the Freedom Caucus chairman who drew the ire of Trump loyalists after initially supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary before later endorsing Trump — told The Hill in a phone interview , that members began interfering in others’ races after he saw another House member hosting a fundraiser for his opponent.
Outside groups like the Republican Main Street Partnership, which has close ties to McCarthy, have also gotten involved.
Good accused McCarthy of being on a “revenge tour” against those who ousted him from his role as speaker.
But Good pushed back against criticism from other House GOP members who accused him and others of obstructionism and making it arduous to get things done within the conference. He argued that Republicans who supported McGuire joined Democrats in passing legislation that did not include “significant policy reforms,” such as: B. the reauthorization of the national defense spending law and the reauthorization of a surveillance law without the need for an arrest warrant.
“What was she prevented from doing? More things Democrats would agree to?” Well told The Hill. “Or are they acting like they would do more conservative Republican things if it weren’t for us, even though they know the Senate wouldn’t pass them anyway? So what are we referring to?”
But infighting among members that has extended into the primaries threatens to push Republicans from their seats — and could offer Democrats a chance for a resurgence this fall.
Gonzales is fighting for his political life in a runoff election later this month against Herrera, a gun enthusiast and YouTuber, after failing to win at least half the vote in the first primary in March.
Good, Gaetz and Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) have supported Herrera, while Johnson, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and other Republicans, including Texas Reps. Ronny Jackson and Jake Ellzey, have thrown their weight behind Gonzales. Some party members have expressed concerns that a Herrera victory in this month’s special election could give Democrats an opening.
“I think 23 is just the district I would be very cautious about,” Austin-based Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser said of Gonzales’ 23rd Congressional District.
“The primaries are all well and good, but this is the type of district we could lose. So I think … it’s just safer to go to districts that are certainly red,” he added, referring to members who are involved in other GOP primaries.
Herrera’s campaign dismissed the idea that Democrats could have a chance if he won the special election, telling The Hill in a statement that “the claim that this seat is ‘at risk’ is unfounded fear-mongering that by Tony Gonzalez’s campaign, which depends on it. “Republicans are bad at math and have no idea about recent history.”
The campaign argued that Gonzales was “based on lies” and that Herrera “will win this seat in November by a larger margin than Tony ever did.”
In other primaries, such as the Bacon-Frei primary race in Nebraska’s swinging 2nd Congressional District, some GOP members are less concerned about Frei ousting an incumbent, but that doesn’t mean they’re excited about the contest either.
“An extremely conservative candidate may win in some districts… could win in the third district. Nebraska’s 3rd District, easy,” said Omaha-based GOP consultant Philip Young. “But you can’t win the second game without doing a little bit.”
Members also recognize that the power struggles are not helpful for the party.
“There is no doubt that it hurts us. Dysfunction and division are damaging the Republican Party,” Bacon told The Hill.
The infighting contradicts an unwritten rule – championed by former President Ronald Reagan – that has guided Republican politics for nearly half a century: Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican. Reagan called it the 11th Commandment.
The outward disregard for that order — and the potential damage it could have on the GOP’s chances in November — was not overlooked by Johnson, who went out of his way to keep his troops from attacking incumbents in primaries. During the annual Republican issues conference in West Virginia in March, the speaker said he had “asked them all to distract themselves.”
“It creates divisions for obvious reasons and we shouldn’t get involved in that,” he told CNN at the time. “So I tell anyone who does this to stop.”
However, the message was ignored by a number of incumbent members who continued to engage in races against incumbent counterparts in districts across the country. Aside from Texas, Nebraska and Virginia, such fights have also occurred in South Carolina, where members of the far-right Freedom Caucus are actively campaigning against Republican Rep. William Timmons, and in Illinois, where hardliners like Gaetz unsuccessfully tried to do the same to more moderates Rep. Mike Bost.
“I think they’re just tired of non-hour Republicans who have terrible records, and when they see a strong conservative fighter getting results, they get excited and want to get behind our candidacy,” South State said Carolina Rep. Adam Morgan (R), who is challenging Timmons next month and has the support of Gaetz, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and others.
Frei, who is supported by Good, argued that the “important issues are these [constituents are] It’s not about the issues that Don Bacon and others talk about [Mike] flood and [Adam] Smith speaks.”
To be sure, Democrats have their own ideological divisions that have led members to support primary candidates over incumbent lawmakers — much to the frustration of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and his leadership team who left are out of the way of standing up for the incumbents.
But such cases are uncommon, and the tone was nowhere near as hostile and aggressive as the public actions of some Republican lawmakers against their own Republican colleagues.
The internal tensions reflect the deep fissures in the Republican Party in the era of Donald Trump, whose arrival on the political scene in 2015 split the GOP into factions that often pitted “America First” Trump loyalists against Reagan -like institutionalists play out the fight for the future direction of the party.
This conflict was evident in the removal of McCarthy; it appeared in Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) recent attempt to unseat Johnson; and it’s resurfacing on the campaign trail as the speaker tries – unsuccessfully – to stop lawmakers from interfering in the primary.
Some members appear to be leaving the door open to supporting other primary challengers to incumbents.
When asked if there were any other primaries he planned to participate in, Good replied, “If there are, they will be public and that information will of course be made public.”
But the riot in Virginia does not indicate electoral consequences for the Republicans in the fall, given the primary disputes among members.
“If Derrick Evans wins in West Virginia, if Adam Morgan wins in South Carolina, if Brandon Herrera wins in Texas and Dan Frei wins in Nebraska, and [Jarrod] Sessler wins in Washington, I think we will win all of these seats in the general election too.”
Updated at 6:43 a.m. ET
Mychael Schnell contributed.
