House Republicans just barely managed to retain their majority in the election — a weak showing compared to their largest presidential victory since 2004 and their gain of seats in the Senate. The razor thin margin is likely to complicate any attempts to pass Donald Trump's agenda.
Facing this daunting prospect, Republicans are rounding on the Libertarian Party as a villain to explain why their performance was so disappointing, Politico reported on Wednesday.
In particular, Republicans are frustrated over a pair of independent PACs they believe acted as spoilers: "One of them, Voter Protection Project, explicitly describes itself as opposing Republicans," Politico wrote.
"The other, dubbed Save Western Culture, was formed in mid-October, and its provenance and funding remains a closely held secret." These two PACs combined "spent $840,000 to boost Libertarian candidates in three races that Republicans narrowly lost in Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon."
Those races involved Democratic incumbent Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Don Davis (D-NC), who pulled off wins against GOP challengers in seats Republicans had hoped would be theirs.
Democratic challenger Janelle Bynum, also unseated freshman GOP incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R--OR). Trump has now nominated DeRemer to serve as his Secretary of Labor, which has raised controversy among Republicans as she was one of the few GOP lawmakers to vote for expanding union rights.
The head of the Congressional Leadership Fund, one of the GOP's biggest PACs for the House, frustratedly wrote in a recent memo that the GOP successfully damaged these Democratic candidates' images, "only for third-party candidates to cost us seats."
Already, the 2022 House majority, which was roughly the same size as their projected majority after this election, was plagued with chaos and infighting, most notably a mid-year ouster of the speaker and weeks of paralysis until Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) could be installed in his place.