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GOP House members embroiled last week in an ideological battle regarding Kevin McCarthy's speakership will now convene as die-hard support for former President Donald Trump continues to cast a shadow over the entire Republican Party.
A new CBS News/YouGov poll of Republican voters shows that 35 percent believe loyalty toward Trump is "very important" moving forward, followed by 30 percent who described it as "somewhat important."
Eighty-one percent of those surveyed said they prefer GOP candidates who have similar policies and proposals to those of Trump. Sixty-six percent prefer candidates with the same view on the 2020 election.
There is some disparity among the GOP base, differentiated between mainstream Republicans and "MAGA" voters.
Approximately 72 percent of MAGA respondents called investigations of President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, higher priorities than crime reduction and increasing oil and gas production. Only 47 percent of non-MAGA Republicans agreed.
While 52 percent of all Republican respondents want their representatives to oppose further aid to Ukraine, an additional 12 percent of MAGA voters oppose it.
The biggest issues in Congress that Republican respondents described as the top priorities include, from most to least important, lowering inflation (89 percent), securing the U.S.-Mexico border (85 percent), and increasing U.S. energy production and reducing crime, which tied at 77 percent.
About 68 percent of MAGA respondents, according to the poll, which was conducted between January 4 and 6, said House Republicans should prioritize opposition to Biden and Democrats. About 52 percent of Republicans as a whole felt similarly.
Fifty-one percent of Republican respondents approved of how their party's members handled the choosing of Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker, with more MAGA voters approving of it than moderate conservatives.
Trump encouraged Republicans to back McCarthy with the limited majority the party possesses, though even Trump's finger on the scale could not quell an eventual 15-ballot race due to consistent GOP holdouts—some of whom repeatedly pushed for Florida Representative Byron Donalds to take the gavel.
The former president said the long process may seem "crazy" but that the dayslong voting was better than being done "the more conventional way."
Former Republican Representative Carlos Curbelo said Sunday on Meet the Press that Trump's impact on the party is waning.
He attributed it to members openly ignoring Trump's push for McCarthy support, including Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert saying from the House floor that Trump's support of McCarthy was ill-advised.
Neil O'Brian, assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon, told Newsweek that House Republicans are conducting a balancing act between appeasement of Trump and his impassioned base, and introducing legislation and investigations that could move the needle among both constituents and general Americans.
He called it reminiscent of the tenure of former GOP House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner.
"We think that [members of Congress] are really focused on passing public policy....I think that's certainly an element of it, but what members care about is getting reelected," O'Brian said.
Just as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to deal with moderate Democrats and progressives during her tenure, the same is likely to happen to McCarthy in the two years leading up to the next major election.
Even though Trump's overall impact on the party has its limits, such as in the midterm Senate races in key swing states that allowed Democrats to maintain the majority, O'Brian said most Republican politicians would love a Trump endorsement in their own perspective races in 2024.
"To win the primary, in 2016 and '18 and '20 and '22 and I anticipate in 2024, running against Donald Trump and trying to win a Republican primary is just incredibly difficult to do....For Republicans, nothing getting done in the final two years of the Biden administration is probably exactly what they want," O'Brian said. "It's kind of like what Democrats did during the last two years of the Trump administration."
About the writer
Nick Mordowanec is a Newsweek investigative reporter based in Michigan. His focus includes U.S. and international politics and policies, immigration, ... Read more