Why Nancy Pelosi can wrangle progressives while Mitch McConnell fears conservatives

Almost certainly in her last term, the speaker has formidable sway over her fractured party – while her GOP counterparts are often obliged to defer to extremists

Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell (AFP via Getty Images)

Last week, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke for many members of the Squad when she voiced her anger that House Democratic leadership, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, threw the full weight of their political capital behind Representative Henry Cuellar, the House’s sole anti-abortion, pro-gun Democrat. Mr Cuellar faced off against Jessica Cisneros, whom Ms Ocasio-Cortez endorsed, in a runoff race last week after neither of them won a clear majority in the initial primary.

“On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary,” the democratic socialist Congresswoman from New York tweeted. “Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it.”

Of course, Ms Ocasio-Cortez famously came to Congress after she toppled House Democratic Caucus chairman Joe Crowley in 2018 and her sister-in-arms Ayanna Pressley did so after beating incumbent Democratic Representative Mike Capuano while in 2020, Squad members Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York successfully primaried longtime incumbent Representatives William Lacy Clay and Eliot Engel, respectively.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Ms Pelosi has pummeled progressives into submission. Last year, as she planned to put the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the floor without a vote on Build Back Better to assuage moderates (including Mr Cuellar), the Congressional Progressive Caucus tried to run out the clock by calling an extended meeting. While your dispatcher and other reporters waited outside the meeting, we noticed many of the phones left there were buzzing and ringing (including one with a ringtone of a sexy saxophone solo). Later, New York Times reporters and friends of the newsletter Carl Hulse and Jonathan Weisman reported that the caller blowing up progressives’ phones was none other than the speaker herself. In the end, Ms Pelosi’s strategy worked, and every progressive except for the Squad voted to put the infrastructure package through.

The fact Ms Pelosi – whom many on the right characterize as an extreme, out-of-touch liberal from San Francisco – often goes to war with the left flank of her party puts her in sharp contrast with her opposite number, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has gone to war with Liz Cheney because she’s dared to call out her party for parroting Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. This weekend, Mr McCarthy went so far as to send a video message to be played at a Trump rally for Ms Cheney’s primary opponent, Harriet Hageman.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell always has to look over his right shoulder to ensure that he hasn’t angered the most conservative faction of his conference – this despite the fact he’s responsible for cementing conservatism on the courts.

Why? Why does Ms Pelosi go to war with the most left-wing voices in her caucus (and often win) while Mr McCarthy (who often is mocked for his fecklessness) and Mr McConnell (considered the only DC politician whose prowess trumps Ms Pelosi’s) both fear their right flank?

The reason is that unlike the hardcore faction of the GOP, progressives aren’t necessarily at the heart of the Democratic base.

A Gallup survey from earlier this year showed that 51 per cent of Democrats identify as liberal, while 37 per cent identify as moderate and 12 per cent identify as conservative, the fifth straight year of similar statistics. But among Black voters, the Democratic Party’s most dedicated voting bloc, the numbers are shifted noticeably to the right: only 29 per cent call themselves liberal while a whopping 43 per cent identify as moderates and 25 per cent as conservative, according to a separate Pew survey. Meanwhile, 38 per cent of Hispanic voters identify as moderate compared to 23 per cent who call themselves conservative with only 37 per cent calling themselves liberal.

What means is that Ms Pelosi, Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are constantly forced to strike a balance. They also have to recognize where conservative Hispanics are concentrated, and Mr Cuellar’s district is chock full of counties that either drastically moved rightward – such as Jim Hogg, Webb, Hidalgo or Starr County – or outright flipped to the GOP like Zapata County in 2020.

As much as Pelosi’s progressive critics may hate her for it, her number one job is to hold the Democratic majority. And she’s made the clear political decision that a Democrat in the mold of the Squad can’t win in a county that moved that rightward (especially as even her most moderate members were tarred as supporting defunding the police in the last election).

On the other side, meanwhile, the same 2022 Pew survey found that a full 74 per cent of Republicans identify as conservatives compared to only 22 per cent who identify as moderate and 4 per cent who identify as liberal. Former vice president Mike Pence’s aphorism that “I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order” perfectly matches the self-image shared by many Republican base voters see themselves.

As a result, Mr McConnell (who used to support abortion rights and had the support of labor unions early in his career) and Mr McCarthy have to deal with the fact that their base is much more right-wing than they are.

For Mr McConnell, that means adopting as much of the conservative agenda as possible and confirming as many judges who will strike down liberal policies while keeping the most extreme candidates as far away from Senate primaries as possible, while for Mr McCarthy, that means keeping as good a relationship with the most fringe members of his conference as possible – even if that means cutting Marjorie Taylor Greene some slack.