--- title: The Republican Party's Plan to Alienate Every Swing Voter description: From House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Washington to Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida, the GOP is pushing ideas that only appeals to their base canonical: https://time.com/6273247/ron-desantis-republican-party-abortion/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-04-20T11:00:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T15:45:37.168Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Republicans Plan to Alienate Every Swing Voter in America og:description: From House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Washington to Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida, the GOP seems to be trying to alienate every swing voter in America, writes Philip Elliott og:url: https://time.com/6273247/ron-desantis-republican-party-abortion/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6b8903a2b865c56/698a3c1f16d8846bd8c3bbe4/GettyImages-1332538177.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Minority Leader McCarthy And Florida Gov. De Santis Hold Press Conference On Cuba og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Republicans Plan to Alienate Every Swing Voter in America twitter:description: From House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Washington to Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida, the GOP seems to be trying to alienate every swing voter in America, writes Philip Elliott twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6b8903a2b865c56/698a3c1f16d8846bd8c3bbe4/GettyImages-1332538177.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Republican Party Has a Plan to Alienate Every Swing Voter in America ## Video: DeSantis Weighed in on a Possible Trump Indictment, Drawing Trump's Ire [Watch (HLS stream): DeSantis Weighed in on a Possible Trump Indictment, Drawing Trump's Ire](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RXrZ7MKC.m3u8) (3:07)  _Published 2023-03-20. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary as a frontrunner in the coming months, responded Monday to former President Donald Trump’s claim that he may be indicted this week._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Apr 20, 2023 11:00 AM UTC  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks as House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy listens during a press conference on August 05, 2021 in Hialeah, Florida Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks as House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy listens during a press conference on August 05, 2021 in Hialeah, FloridaJoe Raedle—Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Apr 20, 2023 11:00 AM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ A week after the midterm elections, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri offered a cold—but probably correct—[diagnosis](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/midterm-2022-elections-funeral-for-republican-party/) of the wreckage facing his party. Working-class, independent voters who had previously cast ballots for Barack Obama and Donald Trump had stayed home, thwarting the GOP’s hopes of a broad House majority and a narrow one in the Senate. [The Red Wave](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/gop-exuberance-crashed-into-democratic-resistance-defy-midterm-expectations/) forecast by so many never materialized, and the soul-searching had begun. “I think that this election was the funeral for the Republican Party as we know it,” [said](https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/11/15/josh-hawley-trump-republican-party-is-dead-sot-vpx-ac360.cnn) Hawley, [adding](https://www.newsweek.com/josh-hawley-declares-death-gop-after-midterm-time-bury-it-1759157): “We need to have a conversation about our core convictions as a party. Clearly, this party is going to have to actually be different or we are not going to be a majority party in this country.” It was a bold statement considering the narrow majority Republicans had secured in the House, prompting some to accurately predict that Speaker-in-Waiting Kevin McCarthy was going to have to capitulate to the party’s fringe to secure the gavel. Ahead of his shambolic leadership election, McCarthy [hustled](https://time.com/6236249/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-bid-challenges/) and [caved](https://time.com/6244944/mccarthy-speaker-holdouts-trolling-democracy/) to his far right. As for the White House, McCarthy [told](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/15/biden-mccarthy-relationship/) reporters he could “work with anybody who wants to work to make America better,” and expected a cool relationship with the Biden White House to warm once he held the gavel. --- ### More from TIME --- Well, that hasn’t exactly unfolded as planned; Biden and McCarthy haven’t spoken since their first chat in February. And, it turns out, McCarthy and his fellow Republicans continue to push an agenda that may well serve the party’s loudest voices cheering for conflict, but not its chase of a stable, predictable governing majority. With [headwinds](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/23/joe-biden-approval-rating-slips-new-ap-norc-poll-says.html) facing Biden’s likely re-election campaign and [frustrations](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-falling-poll-numbers-georgia/2021/10/10/3606c99e-2002-11ec-8200-5e3fd4c49f5e%5Fstory.html?utm%5Fsource=podcasts&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=post-reports) with Washington showing no signs of weakening, the fortunes of the modern GOP should be far brighter than they are. Sure, a tarnished ex-President who is under criminal [indictment](https://time.com/6268675/donald-trump-indictment-historic-significance/) and maintains a vise-like grip on the party is partly to blame, but that alone doesn’t explain the ways in which GOP leaders are choosing to present themselves to voters at every turn. Just consider the messages coming from House Republicans on Monday. McCarthy traveled to the beating heart of the global economy—Wall Street—to [demand](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/17/debt-ceiling-crisis-kevin-mccarthy/) deep cuts in government spending in exchange for a vote that would let the government pay bills already accrued, a threat evocative of the 2011 debt ceiling showdown that sent markets into a crisis and cost Americans [$1.3 billion](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-12-701). Meanwhile, his fellow House Republicans gathered nearby in lower Manhattan, employing [dodgy](https://abc7ny.com/house-of-judiciary-committee-alvin-bragg-hearing-nyc/13141241/) crime stats at a show trial-esque hearing [aimed](https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/politics/house-republican-field-hearing-manhattan-da/index.html) at discrediting Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is [prosecuting](https://time.com/6267419/trump-indictment-alvin-bragg/) Donald Trump’s fraud case. Not to be too blunt, but neither of these headlines seem geared toward a Hawleyan reboot of the Republican Party. Spite can be fun, but it isn’t a policy. A global economic crisis is never good, but what’s potentially in the hopper amid the debt ceiling standoff would be a fiscal [doomsday](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/18/gop-debt-ceiling-bill/), with one [analysis](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/17/debt-ceiling-crisis-kevin-mccarthy/) of the still-forming GOP debt plan agreement predicting it could cost more than 700,000 jobs. The policies put forward by McCarthy—no raised taxes, no touching of Social Security or Medicare—would demand a whopping [52% cut](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/us/politics/trump-desantis-deficit.html) from everything else on the federal books to meet the goal of a balanced budget within a decade. And polls show a [majority](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/most-americans-support-trump-indictment-think-politics-played-role-poll) of Americans approve of Bragg’s prosecution of Trump. But the tone-deaf messaging is not exclusive to the House. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—perhaps the most serious potential [challenger](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/us/politics/desantis-washington-republicans.html) to Trump’s re-nomination at the moment—signed a [six-week ban](https://time.com/6273109/six-week-abortion-ban-florida/) on abortions in his state during a private ceremony last week, and followed that days later by threatening to build a prison next to the spot many families regard as the happiest place on Earth. Florida’s abortion ban comes in the immediate wake of a stunning upset in Wisconsin, where voters [showed](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/upshot/desantis-abortion-ban.html) that tightening access to abortion is a political [loser](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/upshot/desantis-abortion-ban.html), and a year after voters in Kansas [did](https://www.npr.org/sections/2022-live-primary-election-race-results/2022/08/02/1115317596/kansas-voters-abortion-legal-reject-constitutional-amendment) the same. The culture wars in general have left parents [exhausted](https://time.com/6250139/parents-school-culture-wars-polling/), and the coordinated anti-trans rights campaigns coming out of Florida and other states may [work](https://time.com/6270498/republicans-red-states-abortion-culture-war/) with the party’s base but do little to help expand the GOP tent. Then consider the personal. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the groundbreaking California lawmaker who is [retiring](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/us/politics/dianne-feinstein-retire-senate.html) at the end of this term, has been [absent](https://time.com/6271860/dianne-feinstein-judges-resign/) from Washington since being hospitalized in February for shingles. Feinstein’s [absence](https://time.com/6167598/dianne-feinstein-age-congress/) has left Democrats in something of a limbo, given Senate rules, and incapable of doing one of only things they actually have the power to do with a Republican-controlled House, which is to confirm judges. Reluctantly, Feinstein [asked](https://time.com/6271510/dianne-feinstein-judiciary-replacement/) to be temporarily removed from the Judiciary Committee so another Democrat could serve and push through nominees; Republicans on Monday [blocked](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/us/politics/republicans-dianne-feinstein-judiciary.html) that effort, and may pull the same move if Feinstein resigns and Democrats try again to fill her seat on the committee. (After all, there is precedent for denying lawmakers’ requests to change committees, dating back to [1891](https://rollcall.com/2023/04/17/replacing-feinstein-can-be-complicated-senate-history-shows/).) While this is a fight mostly being consumed in Washington, the decision by Senate Republicans to pull the kind of hardball tactics more in league with their House brethren further signals to those in the political middle about the party’s goals, and governing isn’t on the list. Put plainly, Republicans from Washington, D.C. to Tallahassee seem to be chasing political duds in order to placate the party’s fringes. It may feel good to go on cable and insinuate Biden is [senile](https://nypost.com/2022/10/02/senile-joe-biden-is-bringing-shame-to-the-united-states/) or [criminal](https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1648504068380434434?lctg=162453729), and the party’s hacks may giggle. But that’s not a formula to win over swing voters who are watching from afar and just hoping Washington can remember that there are real people with real interests that need some real tending. This performative version of conservatism may feel fun in the moment, but it’s no substitute for long-term control of the gavels. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6273247/ron-desantis-republican-party-abortion/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6273247/ron-desantis-republican-party-abortion/"},"headline":"The Republican Party Has a Plan to Alienate Every Swing Voter in America","datePublished":"2023-04-20T11:00:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T15:45:37.168Z","description":"From House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Washington to Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida, the GOP is pushing policies that only appeals to their base","url":"https://time.com/6273247/ron-desantis-republican-party-abortion/","keywords":["The D.C. 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