Name: Which Democrats And Republicans Support Biden’s Agenda So Far?
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Which Democrats And Republicans Support Biden’s Agenda So Far?

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We’re fast approaching and already Congress has ; helped usher in Biden’s ; and in the House that would give undocumented immigrants, including those currently with temporary protections under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a pathway to citizenship.To understand just how much of the president’s agenda is getting through Congress and the extent to which various members of Congress support that agenda, we’re once again and how that compares with our expectations, based on Biden’s 2020 vote margin in the member’s state or district. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because .) We’ve also added a number of new features to help illustrate how members of Congress vote relative to one another and identify the outliers in each party. (Hint: Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona might not be the only thorns in Biden’s side for the next several years.)A member of Congress’ “Biden score” is just a simple percentage of how often a senator or representative supports the president’s agenda. (We calculate this by adding the member’s “yea” votes on bills that Biden supported and “no” votes on bills Biden opposed, then divide that by the total number of bills on which that member has voted and .) As we did during the Trump administration, we’re relying on the Office of Management and Budget’s “” to determine the administration’s stance on a bill. To read more about what types of measures we’re tracking, — it’s about Trump-era congresses, but the same rules still apply. And, as a reminder, these ratings will update through the 117th Congress.related:Does Your Member Of Congress Vote With Or Against Biden?It’s early yet — we have just 13 votes that aren’t related to the confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet, but there are two interesting trends we’ve noticed at the margins so far:&nbsp;After Biden was elected last year, after predicted that Republicans would thwart his agenda as and that Trump retained an . And while the latter is still&nbsp; at least partially true, it’s also not yet entirely clear the extent to which they’re impacting the GOP’s ability to compromise. Republicans, for instance, haven’t entirely stymied Biden’s agenda.&nbsp;Sure, or Senate . But in the Senate, many have backed his Cabinet picks, and in the House, Republicans and Democrats have found common ground on bills like and .&nbsp;Now, it doesn’t mean these bills featured overwhelming bipartisan majorities, but 140 different House Republicans have voted at least once for something Biden supported. And for some members who fall in this category, the choice appears to be a matter of political caution. Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith and Michigan Rep. Fred Upton — two of whom represent districts Biden either won in 2020 or was competitive in — are so far the GOP members backing Biden’s agenda most frequently.RepresentativeDistrict2020 vote marginbiden scoreplus-minus*Brian FitzpatrickPA-15.876.9%-2.1Chris SmithNJ-410.561.5+43.8Fred UptonMI-64.553.8+20.3Carlos A. GimenezFL-265.646.2+16.4John KatkoNY-249.046.2-42.3Jeff Van DrewNJ-22.946.2+6.2María Elvira SalazarFL-273.241.7-26.0Don YoungAK at-large10.140.0+20.8Tom ReedNY-2311.238.5+21.8Mike BostIL-1214.233.3+19.5Adam KinzinngerIL-1616.033.3+21.6But not all House Republicans are interested in backing Biden’s agenda. About one-third of members —&nbsp;72 total — have completely opposed everything on Biden’s agenda so far. This includes Biden’s coronavirus stimulus package, but also things like , and (Only a handful of Republican representatives supported these measures.)One thing we found surprising, though, is that even some of the most pro-Trump House members, according to , have supported at least one item on Biden’s agenda. Take Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, for example, the House’s who ended Trump’s term with a overall. He was among the 121 House Republicans who approved a special waiver to allow retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense. (Austin’s appointment required this waiver because he had only been retired from the military for four years, instead of the seven years required by law.) Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — who supported Trump’s agenda — supported the same waiver. Granted, this is the only Biden-supported bill that they’ve backed; as such, and still rank very low in terms of backing Biden’s agenda with a Biden score of 7.7 percent so far.In the Senate, every sitting member has supported Biden at least once (yes, even Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Mitch McConnell). An important caveat here, though, is almost all of the Senate votes so far — save for the COVID-19 aid package — were on or related to Cabinet confirmations.However, the top Senate Republicans backing Biden’s nominations so far shouldn’t come as much of a shock, considering potential Senate swing votes or are members of the so-called G-10 — a group of who reportedly want to negotiate with Biden and other Democrats. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine leads the pack with . She’s followed by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (), Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (), Utah Sen. Mitt Romney () and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham ().SenatorState2020 vote MarginBiden Scoreplus-minus*Susan CollinsME9.191.3%-1.4Lisa MurkowskiAK10.190.9+18.9Rob PortmanOH8.087.0+12.3Mitt RomneyUT20.587.0+29.3Lindsey GrahamSC11.778.3+8.7Shelley Moore CapitoWV38.977.3+40.6Richard BurrNC1.375.0-7.6Chuck GrassleyIA8.273.9-0.5Mitch McConnellKY25.973.9+22.7Mike RoundsSD26.273.9+23.0To be sure, a lot of what we’re seeing now among Republicans is pretty small in the grand scheme of things (i.e., supporting Cabinet nominations isn’t that surprising when ). Perhaps we’ll get a better sense of which GOP senators want to work with Biden via Democrats’ big , but if via , we still might not have a sense of who those senators are, as Democrats won’t need their votes. At this point, it’s unclear how many real opportunities for bipartisanship there will be, especially if Biden tries to push items forward that , but aren’t necessarily in line with what their GOP representatives want.Meanwhile, most Democrats support Biden 100 percent of the time.&nbsp;In fact, the only time Senate Democrats have bucked the president’s agenda was when 14 of them . This wasn’t a major flashpoint in the party, as Austin’s confirmation was never really in jeopardy. Instead, it mostly mirrored what happened when Congress in 2017, as to making a similar exception for Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.At this point, the two senators who have arguably received the most attention as being potential roadblocks to the president’s agenda — and —&nbsp;haven’t actually voted against any of the things Biden supports. Now, this is in large part because, again, almost all of the Senate votes so far were on noncontroversial Cabinet confirmations. And any controversial policy proposals both objected to, like raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, . So the two senators are still legislation in ways that aren’t captured by our data. That’s why we should keep an eye on these two members — and others from the more moderate wing of the party — going forward, especially when it comes to their votes on .related:What Have We Learned From Biden’s First 100 Days?In the House it’s much of the same: Representatives who don’t vote with Biden 100 percent of the time are the exception, not the rule. Even members from competitive districts that Biden lost — Iowa Rep. Cindy Axne, Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright and New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim — are completely supportive of the president’s agenda.&nbsp;There have been some defectors in the lower chamber, though. And those members fall into two main categories: Progressive Democrats who were against supporting the Austin waiver and lawmakers from competitive districts.&nbsp;Let’s examine the latter category first. Maine Rep. Jared Golden, who won , only has a — the lowest among all House Democrats. Why? Well, Biden lost his district by nearly 8 points last year and Golden only his seat out of Republicans’ grip in 2018.So far, Golden has voted against Austin’s waiver, legislation allowing farmworkers to get legal immigration status, increasing the waiting period for federal gun background checks, requiring background checks for all gun sales and the coronavirus stimulus package, among other things. Beyond Golden, other members in competitive districts to watch are Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind (), Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar () and Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (). Biden either lost their districts or won by fewer than 5 points in 2020, so we can likely expect for them to continue to deviate from Biden’s agenda.Progressive Democrats have long criticized establishment members of their party as , but so far the measure that the largest number opposed was also the Austin waiver. Excluding that, — including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman —&nbsp;have supported Biden 100 percent.So, to recap: Democrats in both chambers are, so far, largely unified, with some more interesting splinters in the House among members facing competitive reelection bids in 2022. And in the Senate, we’ll likely see more fissures among Democratic members as Biden moves to pass more controversial agenda items. At this point, though, it’s hard to know what the progressive wing will do with Biden’s later proposals since they don’t really have the votes to bring legislation to the floor on their own and their main power will be — similar to Manchin and Sinema — in blocking bills.&nbsp;&nbsp;There’s definitely not enough data to make sweeping statements about how senators and representatives are taking to Biden’s presidency. But at this early juncture, it’s fair to say Republicans might not be completely against compromise and most Democrats will be in lockstep with the president. We’ll continue updating our interactive as more votes are recorded along with publishing stories about the most interesting trends we see as the administration gets to work.Alex Samuels is a politics reporter at FiveThirtyEight.Filed underYou are now subscribed!Email AddressSign me up

We’re fast approaching and already Congress has ; helped usher in Biden’s ; and in the House that would give undocumented immigrants, including those currently with temporary protections under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a pathway to citizenship.To understand just how much of the president’s agenda is getting through Congress and the extent to which various members of Congress support that agenda, we’re once again and how that compares with our expectations, based on Biden’s 2020 vote margin in the member’s state or district. (If this sounds familiar, it’s...

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Politics reporter @FiveThirtyEight. Formerly @TexasTribune. @UTAustin and @NatPress alum. Bostonian. Talk to me: alex.l.samuels@abc.com

Which Democrats And Republicans Support Biden’s Agenda So Far?

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