Congress

House Republicans face internal and external headwinds as they gather to map out 2026

Published

8 months ago

March 9, 2026

DORAL, Florida — House Republicans head to their annual policy retreat Monday in south Florida. Their outlook for the remainder of 2026 is anything but sunny.

GOP lawmakers were already under pressure to address cost-of-living issues ahead of the November midterms. Now President Donald Trump’s decision to launch a war in the Middle East is spiking energy prices and threatening to strain the federal budget just as new signs emerge that the domestic economy is weakening.

Internally, turmoil continues to wrack the GOP’s ultra-narrow majority. Renegade members are routinely bucking leadership — for instance, hauling in Trump’s attorney general for testimony on the Jeffrey Epstein probe. And last week’s primaries generated a fresh trio of lame-duck Republicans who leaders fear might no longer feel compelled to show up for votes on a regular basis.

On top of it all, Trump has focused his legislative energies on matters far afield from what many Republican lawmakers want to tackle. In recent days, he has renewed his push for a long-shot elections bill, adding in additional provisions targeting transgender rights for good measure.

The members gathering at Trump’s Doral resort Monday are seeking to keep the focus on what they can control — with plans to discuss a new party-line budget reconciliation bill as well as so-far elusive options to lower health care costs, fund the Department of Homeland Security and advance stalled housing legislation.

“We have to discuss exactly how we advance the president’s agenda for the last eight months before the election, and we have to set those plans in motion,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, said in an interview.

Trump will address the lawmakers Monday evening as they wait for cues on the president’s policy priorities for the pre-midterm period.

House GOP leaders expect a serious battle to unfold during the retreat over whether to pursue another reconciliation bill — something Speaker Mike Johnson has promised some of his members he will pursue. But it would require almost complete unity among Republicans and faces the distinct possibility it could be DOA in the Senate.

It doesn’t help that Trump himself threw cold water on the idea last month, saying Republicans have “gotten everything passed that we need” ahead of the midterms. Since then, the Middle East War has threatened the low gas prices the president often touts and Friday’s jobs report showed much weaker-than-expected hiring.

Instead, Trump has spent much of his energy stumping for a bill that would not comply with the filibuster-skirting rules of the budget reconciliation process — the SAVE America Act, which would toughen proof-of-citizenship standards for voting. The House passed two versions of the bill, but Trump is now asking for additional provisions barring most mail voting and gender reassignment surgeries for minors.

The president threatened Sunday to not sign any more bills unless Congress passes his version of SAVE America first — and House GOP leaders are bracing for a debate over the legislation to erupt at the retreat, with Trump sure to make his demands in person Monday night.

Besides Trump’s address Monday, lawmakers are set to hear from top White House political aide James Blair, former Trump campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett. Conservative commentator Scott Jennings will brief them on GOP messaging Tuesday, while podcast host Ben Shapiro will address the “speed of new media” in a Wednesday morning session.

Committee chairs are set to discuss their legislative plans for the year Tuesday afternoon, followed by a closed-door meeting of senior elected leaders. Majority Leader Steve Scalise described the sessions in an interview as “members talking to members about planning out the rest of the year.”

“We’ve been working incredibly close with President Trump this whole last year-and-a-half to make life more affordable for families, and there’s more we want to do this year and beyond,” he added.

Republicans also expect House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Rep. Ken Calvert of California, chair of the funding panel that oversees the Pentagon, to discuss an anticipated White House request for military assistance and other possible items.

Some Republicans think the need for more war funding could jumpstart a fresh reconciliation push, given expected Democratic opposition in the Senate. One of those optimistic members is House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington of Texas, who said in an interview he would pair new military spending with cuts to Pentagon programs that need to be “retooled.”

Top party leaders have also instructed committee chairs to revisit items that were dropped from the megabill enacted last summer as they consider what might get folded into a new piece of legislation. But some remain highly skeptical this effort will ever gain traction.

House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said in an interview Thursday that he doesn’t “see a pathway” for it.

“Maybe people can prove me wrong,” he said.

Elsewhere, Johnson is under pressure to advance stalled legislation to crack down on lawmaker stock trading, a farm bill, and possibly an energy permitting overhaul and a highway bill. All have some bipartisan support but constitute major legislative lifts.

Smith is expected to talk through a list of bipartisan health care and tax priorities he hopes to advance to the House floor and send over to the Senate. House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said in an interview he’s planning to discuss his panel’s reconciliation priorities, as well as unfinished housing and cryptocurrency market structure bills — both of which are currently stuck in negotiations with the Senate.

The retreat also opens on the 24th day of an ongoing DHS shutdown impacting TSA, FEMA and other security operations. House Homeland Security Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) said he was planning to share details about how the funding lapse is degrading the department’s preparedness, as well as a number of reauthorization bills under his panel’s jurisdiction.

Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan, the No. 4 GOP leader, said another major topic will be how Republicans should be selling last summer’s party-line tax and spending package and what can be done “between now and the end of the year to lower costs for the American family, bring down prices, bring more manufacturing over, bring costs down and [put] more money in their pocket.”

But pursuing any partisan legislative undertaking will require near-complete unity in the GOP ranks.. With only one defection permitted under the current party split, Johnson has to worry about members like Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who forced disclosure of the Epstein files, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who led the effort to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Johnson also can’t afford any attendance issues: A handful of members are dealing with health problems, including Rep. Neal Dunn of Florida, who was thought to be considering resignation before announcing he’d serve out his term. There’s the growing cadre of lame ducks, too, which now includes Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, who missed votes Thursday after admitting to an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide. Texas Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Wesley Hunt also lost primary races last week.

The House GOP’s math problem could improve following a special election Tuesday for the seat vacated by former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), which is expected to go to another Republican. But with more than 20 candidates in the GOP primary, the race could go to a monthlong runoff.

Republican leaders are also banking on having the votes to expel a Democrat, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, who has been federally indicted on corruption charges. But they have to first wait until the House Ethics Committee holds a hearing on the matter, and those proceedings were delayed until later this month after Cherfilus-McCormick lost her lawyer.

Democrats, meanwhile, could attempt to counter her expulsion by attempting to expel Gonzales, who says he plans to finish out his term. House Democratic leaders are also pushing their members to show up and make every vote as uncomfortable for the GOP as possible.

“There’s a lot of jobs I don’t want in this town,” Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, the Democratic Caucus chair, said at a recent news conference. “And Republican whip is definitely high on that list.”

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

‘Look what I brought home for you’: GOP embraces earmark revival as Election Day looms

Published

1 day ago

October 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

With voters sour on Republican governance, GOP candidates in the most competitive House and Senate races are reaching for a time-tested message that has grown out of fashion in their party: bringing home the federal bacon.

A Blue Light News analysis of the dozen closest congressional races for Republican incumbents revealed that most are highlighting earmark success stories in the final days before voters head to the polls.

The ability to secure federal funding for pet projects back home — something many in the GOP have spent years trying to curtail — has given those candidates a positive talking point as President Donald Trump’s flagging approval ratings and widespread voter dissatisfaction over issues like the Iran war, high gas prices and tariffs weigh on other messages.

“When the president’s job approval is in the 30s, it is helpful for Republican candidates to be able to create some distance from the president. It’s challenging to do that without encouraging the president’s wrath,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said in an interview. “But focusing on bringing home the bacon might be one very good way to do it without antagonizing the president.”

In Michigan, Rep. Tom Barrett is out with an ad about a $750,000 earmark for youth mentoring; in New York, Rep. Mike Lawler is talking about how he secured $120 million for local projects.

Rep. Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania is telling voters he has “brought back more than $110 million to our community,” including millions in earmarks, while Rep. David Valadao has run ads showcasing $500 million in earmarks for water projects in California’s Central Valley.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a GOP moderate seeking to project independence from Trump in a competitive contest, has repeatedly touted the exact count of the earmarks she has locked in over the last half-decade for her home state of Maine.

The sum: 672 projects totaling $1.5 billion, “from Madawaska to Kittery, from Eastport to Rumford,” as she said in her opening statement earlier this month in her first debate against Democrat Troy Jackson. This past week, Collins has peppered voters with county-specific text messages detailing how much she’s secured for each area.

There are countless other examples of earmark campaigning among vulnerable Republican incumbents, though many conservatives remain reluctant to associate themselves with the practice. It still carries a stigma of corruption after two Republicans were sent to prison on related bribery charges in the mid-2000s, paving the way for the GOP to do away with earmarks in 2011.

That left GOP candidates unable to play up the clearest spoils of incumbency ahead of the “blue wave” of 2018. But Democrats revived them in 2021 with new safeguards, and now Republicans are taking advantage as they navigate another tough midterm cycle.

“That word ‘earmark’ can carry some negative baggage, especially among the old fiscal conservatives,” nonpartisan pollster Mike Noble said in an interview. “But when you describe that same expenditure as funding for a local water system, highway, public safety project — voters evaluate that differently.”

Recognizing the advantages, Republicans opted to keep earmarks around under unified party leadership in 2025, resulting in the enactment of almost $16 billion worth of earmarks this year. For those who still consider earmarks anathema to the GOP’s values of fiscal restraint, it’s causing complications on the trail.

Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga of Michigan is fielding criticism for not requesting any earmarks for his district. While he airs ads calling himself “tight with a buck,” his opponents are telling voters that lawmakers like Huizenga are increasing their net worth “while turning down community project funding.”

Some recent polling shows Huizenga trailing his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Sean McCann, by 1 percentage point.

McCann said in an interview he will “go to bat” for earmarks if he defeats Huizenga: “That’s an expectation that people have when you want to represent them — that you do the things that are important and secure crucial investments for the district.”

Huizenga defended himself in a statement, saying “earmarks have a long history of waste and abuse by politicians looking to enrich themselves in office.”

Huizenga noted that he has “helped secure hundreds of millions in federal investments for Southwest Michigan without requesting a single earmark,” including a $400 million grant last year for a nuclear power plant and $51 million for a housing redevelopment project.

He isn’t the only Republican incumbent in a tight race who has foregone earmarks. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is facing a competitive challenge from former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, refused to request cash for district-specific projects as part of the annual government funding process. Instead, he points to his support for efforts made possible through the 2021 infrastructure law signed by then-President Joe Biden, as well as other legislation and grants the Trump administration doles out for local efforts.

Trump officials have traveled to Alaska in recent weeks to stand alongside Sullivan in announcing the delivery of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for the state, including $38 million in energy grants and $250 million for rail infrastructure.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who appears to be in a dead heat with his Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton, also didn’t ask for any federal funding this year. But he is getting flak for seeking a $4.2 million earmark in 2024 to finance improvements to increase water to a wildlife refuge that borders his ranch.

Spokespeople for the Sullivan and Marshall campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.

Whether voters perceive earmark requests as positive or negative likely depends heavily on how a candidate frames the talking point, Noble said, acknowledging that incumbents rarely use the word in campaign ads or town hall speeches and instead speak broadly about how they “deliver” for their district.

“Voters, at the end of the day — it’s about direct benefit. What are they getting out of this deal? That’s one of the powers of incumbency. They have that ability to say, ‘Hey, look what I brought home for you,’” he said. “But again, what else are they going to talk about?”

Congress

GOP lawmakers start contemplating a diminished Donald Trump

Published

1 day ago

October 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Donald Trump will have his ironclad grip on congressional Republicans tested like never before if the party loses one or both chambers Tuesday.

Trump already appears to be gearing up to blame others if Democrats retake the House or the Senate. But within the halls of the Capitol, GOP lawmakers are contemplating whether the president’s ability to bend them to his whims will diminish if the party is swept out of power.

“We’ll see,” Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) said when asked how much influence the president will have after the midterms, before praising Trump’s record and willingness to hit the campaign trail on behalf of Republican candidates.

Granted anonymity to speak frankly before the election, many of the 15 GOP lawmakers interviewed about the future of Trump’s influence said they believe his days of dictating outcomes with Truth Social posts and late-night phone calls could be coming to an end.

“It’s not like his persuasion is growing,” said a Republican senator. “Political capital is earned and lost the same way.”

One House Republican cast the potential fight for minority leader as an early test of Trump’s sway: “One would say that the president would have quite a bit of influence on who leads in the minority. But one would also say that he has less influence because some people would blame him” for a loss.

The member added: “That will be an interesting dynamic after Election Day. No one expects Trump to take any blame after the election. So if he doesn’t, who does?”

It’s hardly the first time Republicans have predicted that Trump’s days of dominating the GOP were on the wane. A broad swath of the party turned on him after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, only to come back to the fold as he regained power.

Despite plenty of kvetching publicly and privately about some of Trump’s policies and personnel picks since being sworn in for a second term, most in the party have fallen in line — and few expect him to change his high-pressure style during his final two years in office.

Many Republicans anticipate he’ll weigh in on 2028 congressional primaries while also playing a loud role in determining the party’s presidential nominee — as well as weighing in on day-to-day machinations on Capitol Hill.

“He’s going to continue fully engaged … regardless of the outcome,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said in an interview, praising Trump’s “very creative” and “thoughtful” ideas on domestic and foreign affairs.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said in an interview “it’ll be challenging” for Trump if Republicans lose the House but said his influence would persist: “He still has the bully pulpit, and I say that in a good way.”

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump “is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress.”

But unlike Trump’s last midterm drubbing, in 2018, a decisive loss this time would officially usher him into lame-duck status. While House members will all be campaigning for reelection with Trump still in office — and face the prospect of a presidential primary threat — only about a third of currently sitting Republican senators are in the same boat.

The rest will stand for reelection in 2030 and 2032, after Trump is out of office.

One GOP senator pointed to the party’s stable of vulnerable candidates and incumbents who have broken with Trump over the Iran conflict as a sign of things to come if Republicans take a battering Tuesday.

“He’s in trouble,” the senator said.

Another House Republican added that if Democrats win only a small majority in that chamber, Trump will “still carry a lot of sway.” But a “shellacking,” the lawmaker said, will have Trump “looking for our help more than we’d be looking for his.”

“If it’s truly a big blue wave, every committee will investigate the hell out of him the next two years and R’s will quickly start looking at [2028] and beyond,” the member added in a text message.

Trump will face a series of quick tests after the midterms. The House is expected to vote on whether to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth soon after members return. Some Republicans said if voters deliver a wipeout for their party amid widespread dissatisfaction with the Iran war, several of their colleagues could end up supporting the measure.

The president could also face headwinds if he tries to muscle a final party-line spending bill through Congress before Democrats take charge in either chamber and kill any chance for partisan legislation like the election bill known as the SAVE America Act. Republicans have already struggled to move these measures, and GOP lawmakers who just lost reelection could have little reason to rally behind them on their way out the door.

House Republicans are in particular keeping their eyes on whether Trump will weigh in on the GOP leadership races that will play out in the week after the election.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio are expected to clash if Republicans are electing a minority leader. But many GOP lawmakers think Speaker Mike Johnson could have a shot at hanging on as the chamber’s top Republican if Trump wants it.

Jordan and Scalise are also both close Trump allies, and most Republicans are skeptical he would choose between the two.

“The president of the United States certainly has influence,” Jordan said in an interview. “I think he’ll continue to have influence.”

In the Senate, conservatives are privately questioning whether Trump will blame Senate Majority Leader John Thune if Republicans lose control of the chamber.

Trump sowed doubt about Thune’s leadership over the summer as he stewed about the Senate’s failure to act on the elections bill. But he more recently publicly defended Thune during the party’s midterm convention in September.

Many Republican senators expect Thune to keep his job even if Trump moves against him. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has aired frustrations about how the Senate is run but has repeatedly said he won’t run for leader and has declined to criticize Thune. Some GOP senators have privately speculated about whether Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has leadership ambitions, but few think he’s actually interested.

Trump turning on Thune “certainly would not” cause Thune to lose his leadership race, said one of the GOP senators, adding that it was “absolutely the case” that Thune would keep his job even if Trump balks.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who is in line to run the Senate GOP campaign arm in the next Congress, said of Thune, “I don’t think there’s an insurgent movement that’s against him.”

Barrasso, the No. 2 Republican, is backing Thune as well. Asked about the speculation that Trump could turn on Thune, Barrasso said, “He’s going to get reelected as leader.”

Congress

Bill Foster cools on challenging Maxine Waters

Published

2 days ago

October 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Bill Foster is leaning against challenging Rep. Maxine Waters for the top Democratic spot on the House Financial Services Committee, according to two people with knowledge of his thinking who were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

The Illinois Democrat has been considering a bid to topple Waters but has not made a final decision, the people said. The timeline for him doing so is unclear.

Democratic Rep. Sean Casten, also from Illinois, told Waters earlier this month that he plans to run against her, likely teeing up a major fight over the Financial Services role, which the California Democrat has held since 2013.

Most Financial Services Democrats on the committee have publicly backed Waters for the role.

Foster, who was first elected in 2008, previously discussed with Waters ways to reform the committee that would give subcommittee chairs more power to shape the panel’s agenda. A physicist with a doctorate, Foster is currently the top Democrat on a House Financial Services Financial Institutions Subcommittee.

A Foster spokesperson declined to comment.