Congress
Top House Republican: Trump ‘unfavorability’ led to losses
Rep. French Hill, a senior Republican who barely won reelection in Little Rock this week, said President Donald Trump’s “unfavorability” is to blame for sweeping GOP losses.
The Associated Press called the race for Hill on Thursday after the six-term lawmaker and House Financial Services Committee chair faced off against Democrat Chris Jones. Hill won by less than 2 percentage points.
“President Trump’s unfavorability had a lot of impact on races across the country,” Hill said in an interview. “I think that’s evident by some of the exit polling. We had, in my judgment, recruited good candidates who had good funding for their campaigns. But it was a wave election, and we lost a lot of really good, constructive members of the House.”
It was the closest race yet for Hill, who struggled to win even as he outspent Jones, a former Arkansas gubernatorial candidate, 3 to 1. As House Financial Services chair, Hill has been instrumental the last two years in enacting bipartisan housing and cryptocurrency legislation.
During the campaign, Hill was willing to distance himself from Trump, especially when it came to touting the housing bill that the president refused to sign.
In the interview Wednesday, Hill suggested that Republicans could break further with Trump during the final two years of his term.
“He will be considered a lame duck, and that often has members of both political parties looking out at who will be the standard-bearers in the 2028 presidential election,” he said. “So, I think certainly that will influence policymaking and politics inside the House and Senate.”