The political nonprofit affiliated with President Trump is complicating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s whip on the healthcare bill by threatening retribution against wayward Republicans.
The first target is Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., for whom the politics of Obamacare repeal are complicated.
Heller is running for re-election in a battleground state that voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton last November — and his popular Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, opposes the Better Care Reconciliation Act.
If Heller comes around, even after negotiating changes to the bill, he risks charges of capitulating under pressure from Trump, even if America First Policies never follows through with its promised seven-figure advertising buy in Nevada.
That could create additional obstacles his 2018 campaign, and McConnell’s effort to cajole 50 votes out of his 52-member conference. Heller is among five Republicans opposed to the bill in its current form.
“What the Trump group has done makes it even harder for Heller, because now if he’s a ‘yes,’ he’s not a yes on the substance, but on the politics,” a Republican insider told the Washington Examiner, on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly.
Brian O. Walsh, president of America First Policies, the officially sanctioned Trump outside group, declined to address questions about the group’s strategy. “Heller needs to get to ‘yes,'” is all he would say. The group said separately that its campaign against Heller was full steam ahead.
There were reports Monday that America First Policies was expanding its campaign to target Republicans opposed to the BCRA to include others who have come out as firm “no” votes: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas; Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin; Sen. Mike Lee of Utah; and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
But Walsh batted down those rumors, saying the group was readying an ad campaign against specific Senate Democrats.
“We’ve been doing calls, and some light digital, in over a dozen states, including Texas, Utah and Maine with a simple message” encouraging voters to urge their senators to support the party’s health care agenda.
The matter is sensitive. Among the parties declining to comment for this story were Heller’s office; McConnell’s office; and the NRSC, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, responsible for defending Heller next year.
Heller’s position is unique because is he one of just two legitimate Democratic midterm targets in the Senate. The map favors Republicans, with several opportunities to pick off Democratic incumbents running for re-election in red states.
The Republican, serving his first full term after being appointed by Sandoval in 2011, has been a fairly reliable vote for McConnell and Trump, not insignificant given the majority, leader has only two votes to spare, and even then, Vice President Mike Pence has to break the tie.
Trump presumably needs Heller’s vote on tax reform and other big-ticket items besides the healthcare overhaul.
That makes it all the more questionable for outside Trump allies to put undue political pressure on Heller, especially since the attack came the day after McConnell’s bill was introduced, before leadership and the White House even had a chance to try and negotiate with him.
Republican insiders in Nevada said that Heller was in a no-win situation.
The Republican healthcare agenda could be kryptonite for the senator in 2018 regardless of how he votes, they said if voters don’t have a change of heart repeal and replace, currently underwater in public opinion polls.
But unlike most of his other Republican colleagues who are opposed, Heller is cornered. Sandoval embraced the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare and is well liked despite the political toll Republicans suffered at the ballot box in Nevada in November.
That makes it very difficult for Heller to support the BCRA, absent substantial changes. The Congressional Budget Office score, projecting 22 million fewer Americans would have health insurance under the proposal, wasn’t likely to help matters, despite the tax cuts and predicted deficit reductions.
“His challenge is, he’s not dancing alone, he’s dancing with Sandoval, and Sandoval is leading,” a Nevada Republican operative said. “If Sandoval can’t get comfortable with it, Dean’s got nowhere to go.”
This week, Nevada’s Obamacare exchange will announce plans for 2018, including proposed rate increases and whether existing insurers will remain in the market there. The decisions announced could influence what Heller does next.
