House Speaker Paul Ryan can’t escape questions about the GOP.
Speaker says GOP needs to get more things accomplished
MUKWONAGO, Wis. — With a dysfunctional Congress on recess, House Speaker Paul Ryan has turned his focus back home, touring flood-damaged areas and visiting local businesses in Wisconsin. But he can’t escape the questions about why Republicans in charge of Washington aren’t delivering.
And though he’s won re-election easily for years, Ryan faces the prospect of challenges from left and right and an energized Democratic base in next year’s midterm elections.
“We have a majority in the House and Senate, and it feels like nothing’s getting done,” 32-year-old James Hulsey said just before Ryan recently toured his workplace.
Sensing the angst, Ryan has been much more visible in his southeast Wisconsin district as Republicans failed to deliver on their yearslong promise to scrap the health care law and new polling numbers show the speaker is less popular among Republicans in Wisconsin than President Donald Trump. Trump won Wisconsin by less than a percentage point, but he carried Ryan’s district by 10 points.
In the remaining months of the year, Ryan and the Republican-led Congress are determined to deliver major legislation, elusive so far due to GOP infighting, and the top priority is overhauling the nation’s tax code. Failure to produce could cost Republicans their House majority in the 2018 midterms and, for Ryan, his job as speaker and Republican leader.
“This is the third time in 100 years we’ve had this alignment of government that we’ve got to get it done or else I really worried our country will continue down a bad path,” Ryan said after his tour of the wire manufacturer Banker Wire in Mukwonago, Wisconsin.
He later told the Wisconsin State Journal, “If we don’t do our job, we will depress turnout. I am frustrated as well.”
Ryan angered some conservatives during the campaign with comments critical of then-candidate Trump. But in the first six months of Trump’s term, Ryan has been far less critical of the president than other Republican lawmakers who have challenged a number of Trump moves.
Ryan’s Republican primary challenger last year, Paul Nehlen, initially won the backing of then-candidate Trump, who later switched to Ryan. Ryan beat Nehlen by 70 percentage points in the primary. But Nehlen, who is running again, thinks 2018 will be more difficult for Ryan, arguing that he hasn’t done enough to appease Republican Trump supporters.
“President Trump has given Paul Ryan way more opportunities to stand up and back him and what he has done is really undermine him,” Nehlen said.