Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:
Yes. Well, that’s an excellent question, is that I think what they’re looking at for the very first time is the reality of all politics is local, even though they have been in many ways just talking in a more national — have been on a more national focus for quite some time, which is, if you look at the polling nationally, the idea of cutting government waste, of firing excess government workers sounds really popular, until it comes to your home district.
Now, outside of this area that we sit in here in Washington, D.C., most congressional districts have maybe 2, 3 percent of their total work force is employed by the federal government. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to trickle out into other areas, meaning the people that are their suppliers or their contractors, their families.
And here’s another thing we know. Angry people tend to show up, not just to town halls, but they tend to show up to vote as well. And so I think what Republicans are trying to do now, we have been hearing and seeing some of these stories, trying to find ways to do little carve-outs for programs or other priorities in their districts, trying to take those off the chopping block.
That’s going to be really, really hard to do. The other thing I heard in talking with one Republican source is that what folks, Republicans are really worried about is that it’s Elon Musk who they see as — the voters see as being a big part of this problem, that they — that Republican members have to figure out a way to message about Musk being unelected and that these voters coming in saying, hey, how did we give the keys to somebody that we never voted for?
