One year after the dramatic ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, lingering doubts over the dysfunction and chaos that engulfed the party have hurt fundraising and the question remains if House Republicans have done enough to hold onto power.
Since little-known Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) rose to the top, House Republicans have been able to largely clamp down on the circus and have been more productive when it comes to governing and passing legislation. They tout “common sense bills” and the promise to enact an “America First” economic agenda with former President Donald Trump as reason to reelect them in November.
However, Cook Political Report House analyst Erin Covey said she doesn’t think Republicans are in a better position than they were a year ago to prove to voters they deserve the majority.
“I think the chaos in the House does have an impact largely in terms of contributing to the brand of Republican chaos, connecting that to January 6 and all these other figures,” Covey said. “But I do think that behind the scenes, it has hurt Republican fundraising.”
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ campaign arm, ended August with $87.3 million in cash in the bank. Since Vice President Kamala Harris took over the top of the ticket, she helped jumpstart Democratic Party fundraising that has had a trickle-down effect on House races and state-level organizing. In contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s main fundraising vehicle, ended August with $70.8 million.
Heading into the general election when Johnson is clinging to a four-seat majority, Republicans are making the case that a GOP sweep of Congress and the White House is needed to deliver results.
“House Republicans passed common-sense bills to address voters’ top concerns,” NRCC spokesman Will Reinert told the Washington Examiner. “Unfortunately, extreme Democrats and the Harris-Biden administration rejected every proposal to solve the border, crime and cost of living crises because it would undermine their far-left liberal policies Americans hate.”
Johnson restores some order to the House
Since Republicans took control of the House in 2023, the party has had no shortage of historic moments, starting with the unprecedented 15-round voting session to elect McCarthy and culminating with his removal just 10 months later.
The intraparty fighting and occasional wrestle between rank-and-file Republicans and GOP leadership has opened the party up to attacks from Democrats that they are unable to govern on their own. Johnson has sought to change that over the last year, urging unity among the GOP conference to prove they can lead the chamber.
So far under Johnson, the House has been slightly more productive in terms of legislating than it was under his predecessor.
As a whole, 2023 was the least productive 12-month period for House lawmakers in at least a decade. Lawmakers only passed 330 pieces of legislation with even fewer, 23, eventually becoming law.
The numbers have fared slightly better under Johnson, with the House passing 497 bills so far in 2024. Of those, though, only 13 have been signed into law.
But the passage of legislation has not been without challenges. Johnson has contended with many of the same obstacles McCarthy dealt with, resulting in the historic lack of action.
“For Republicans, it’s a give and take,” Cook Political Report senior editor and elections analyst Dave Wasserman said. “On the one hand, they’ve succeeded in keeping themselves and dysfunction on their side mostly out of the news for the second half of 2024, but they have also failed to fix their hard dollar fundraising problem from last cycle.”
Under both speakers, the House has witnessed the highest number of failed rule votes, a procedural measure that is usually voted along party lines to advance legislation to the floor. Although it’s typically rare for rule votes to fail, hardline conservatives have looked to the procedure to protest GOP leadership and stall floor action until certain demands are met.
As a result, GOP lawmakers helped to sink three rule votes under McCarthy and another four under Johnson.
The intraparty rebellion has led to attacks from Democrats that Republicans are unproductive and “chaotic.”
“When House Republicans fired Kevin McCarthy to then elevate the most extreme Speaker in history, they broadcast a very clear message to the American people: There are no more moderate Republicans left, only far-right extremists obsessed with passing a nationwide abortion ban, tax breaks for the ultrawealthy and rubber stamping Project 2025 — and they should lose the majority,” DCCC spokesman Viet Shelton said in a statement with the Washington Examiner. ”And come Nov. 5, they will!”
McCarthy’s ouster leaves hard feelings among GOP
Some GOP incumbents are upset with their colleagues for leaving few accomplishments to campaign on.
“I think it was as productive as you can get when you have people who are wearing your jersey but they’re not on your team,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) told the Washington Examiner.
Public perception of congressional Republicans has also improved since Johnson took the gavel last October, recovering from a peak of 64.6% unfavorability ratings in October 2023 to 60.7% as of Sept. 23, according to YouGov.com. Favorability ratings have also gone up under Johnson, with 34.2% of voters viewing congressional Republicans favorably compared to 31.1% last year.
“[Johnson’s] not just held us together, he’s actually moved us forward,” Van Orden said. “I think we’re a lot more cohesive now because there were some pretty dark days there.”
Similar to McCarthy’s appearance in attack campaigns, Johnson has been showing up in a lot of Democratic ads as they target vulnerable GOP incumbents. Covey said because Johnson is “less defined” than McCarthy, Democrats are able to tie the speaker to the “national Republican brand” as a “generic” Republican.
“As someone who had a quite conservative record before he was speaker, there have been efforts to tie Republican candidates to [Johnson], and that this Republican candidate would be another vote for Johnson,” Covey said. “Now, again, I’m still not sure how effective that is, because I don’t know how many voters actually know who Johnson is still.”
However, relations with the GOP conference are still rocky in some places after the ouster of McCarthy — with some members even going so far as to campaign against some of their current colleagues.
McCarthy set out on a “revenge tour” against the eight Republicans who helped oust him — which ended with mixed results. One of the closest-watched primaries of the 2024 cycle was for the seat held by former Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-VA). Republican state Rep. John McGuire, who was also backed by Trump, defeated Good in the primary, making him the first House GOP incumbent to lose his reelection campaign.
However, efforts to unseat other members of the group of eight were unsuccessful, including defeating the biggest McCarthy foe and leader of his ouster, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.
The loss of McCarthy still stings for some.
Van Orden said McCarthy got “more Republicans elected to the House” than any other member of Congress in history, and pointed to McCarthy’s significant fundraising hauls — a campaign boost that many vulnerable Republicans, including Van Orden, relied upon.
“It’s not Republican, that’s not conservative, that was just stupid,” the Wisconsin Republican said. “And how it negatively affected for a period of time the rest of the conference is, they saw bad behavior being rewarded, and we can’t have that.”
With Republicans holding a razor-thin majority in the House, and both parties facing several competitive races in November, who controls the lower chamber is still a toss-up.
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If the GOP loses the majority, Van Orden has a scapegoat.
“I’ve expressed very clear, specific, pointed comments about Matt Gaetz being the person if we come back and we’re in the minority.”, it’s his fault,” Van Orden said. “Let’s be crystal clear, that’s what’s going on.”
Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.