GOP moderates in tough spot in swing districts
Posted: Thursday, October 10, 2013 3:42 am | Updated: 5:02 am, Thu Oct 10, 2013.
Associated Press |
Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick had been expected to face a tough re-election fight.
Then he sided with GOP leadership and a tea party insisting that a federal spending plan to keep the government open must delay or defund President Barack Obama’s health care law. Now, with the partial government shutdown stretching into its second week, Fitzpatrick’s bid for a second term may be growing even more challenging.
Voters in his suburban Philadelphia district talk of a widening sense of disappointment with their two-term congressman, while Democrats across Pennsylvania and other states claim new momentum in their quest to take back the House majority next fall
“It would have been nice for him to make a decision that wasn’t based on party,” says Daryl Curtis, who for two decades has run a barber shop along Bristol’s sleepy main drag.
For the GOP, the stakes in places like Bristol are high. The fight for control of the House likely will be won and lost in suburban swing districts where most voters favor political moderation and independence over party ideology. Republican success in hanging onto these districts will depend, in part, on how well they explain the shutdown to weary voters _ and how long it lasts.
That’s putting new pressure on Republican moderates who represent such districts, Fitzpatrick included.
After weeks of trying to balance the wishes of his moderate district and House conservatives, he sided with most congressional Republicans in refusing to approve a measure that would have kept the government operating because it also would have continued to pay for the health care law. Democrats, who control the White House and the Senate, refused to delay or destroy the landmark health care law. The impasse resulted in the government shutdown.
