Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Minority Leader, and Republican Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, did an excellent job in 2020. The party picked up at least a dozen seats in the House, not one incumbent lost a seat, and the party is within single digits of a majority. In fact, if McCarthy can cut a deal with moderate Democrats he could stop Nancy Pelosi from continuing as Speaker. At the very least, with some moderate Democrat help, he can stop cold Biden legislation in the House.
There are 23 Democrats who vowed to work with Republicans if Speaker Pelosi refused to pass a common-sense COVID relief package.
Enough is enough. It’s time for those 23 Democrats to put people before politics. pic.twitter.com/bQxnSsExG8 [1]
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) November 22, 2020 [2]
The superb Republican showing in the House brings up several questions. How did the party do that well down ticket but do badly at the top? If it is because of widespread corruption, did the Democrats forget about the House? If the machines themselves were programmed to cheat for the Democrats, why didn’t they cheat in House races? Or was it that Republican congressional candidates were much more popular than the president?
McCarthy addressed Republican House and election issues with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “The Republican Party really made great gains in 2020,” he said and added, “Americans rejected Democrat socialist policy.”
Bartiromo noted that the “House GOP flipped at least 12 seats with major victories for incoming women, veterans and minorities.”
McCarthy responded, “We’ve had more women than at any time serving in Congress. The Republican Party really made great gains, not only did we flip 12, there are four more races out there and we’re ahead in all four of them so I expect as the week progresses it will end up somewhere around 212, 213 seats, it only takes 218 for a majority. This will be the closest of a majority that at any time since World War II and really, nobody saw this coming. The American people have now rejected Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat socialist policy…the next two years are going to be about the Republican commitment versus the Democrat’s agenda.”
McCarthy said Republicans “had a commitment to America, to make our streets safe, to defeat this virus, to rebuild our infrastructure, to end our dependency on the China infrastructure. That’s the agenda we will move forward and we’ll be looking to get five to six more Democrats to join with us and then we’ll be able to run the floor.” If he can pull that off Kevin McCarthy will be the biggest Republican hero of 2020.