Who said anything about the GOP base? A senator sitting in a swing state is subject to the whole state. If the whole state swings left in given election they’re at risk of losing their seat. That tends to happen if they’re viewed as too conservative. That’s the base reason there are any moderate (ish) republicans left. And the Senate is less extreme than the house.
Not their base punishing them. But swing voters switching horses. And increased turn out from dnc voters.
Before the big (public) uniter was SC judges, the pitch and the campaign promise. It was repealing Obama care of day one. Most of these guys were elected with that as their central promise. An they fought about how to do it, not whether to, so much they’ve repeatedly fucked themselves.
As has been the case with nearly every headline worthy item of national importance since Gorsuch. They’ve lost 3 seats since they obstructed Garland. And 1 since they confirmed Gorsuch. And as a result they have a much tighter margin on the judiciary committee.
The situation with the Senate right now is that any one to two GOP senators can hold whatever they’d like up for an long as they’d like. To get whatever they need out of it. And we’ve seen that actually happen on nearly everything that’s come through there. I don’t see any reason to expect that’ll change. Especially as the pressures driving it have only ramped up. There were complaints and threats within the GOP over Garland and Gorsuch as it was. With the escalation of that infighting we’ve seen, And the GOP so close to hit having enough Senate votes to begin with. I don’t see how yet another most important thing suddenly makes their machine run properly.
If by chance this comes up before the end of the year. They’ll get their confirmation. But I’d expect it to be messy.
