But now he’s helped push through a string of major bipartisan victories that Democrats in particular are touting, splintering his own conference and leaving some House Republicans fuming.
“Of course there was big frustration” with those Senate Republican votes, said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, an ally of House GOP leadership and co-founder of the hardline House Freedom Caucus. “I thought that was totally wrong.”
The divide is most pronounced between McConnell and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has whipped his members to oppose some of the big-ticket items that McConnell has backed, raising concerns among some Republicans about how the two will function in a potential GOP majority next year.
“Too often we’re seeing Republicans in the Senate losing fights because they’re not sticking together,” a Republican House member told CNN. “In the majority, we would hope that the Senate would be a partner, rather than an obstacle.”
McCarthy, who meets regularly with McConnell when both chambers are in session, said he has directly complained to McConnell about mandatory spending levels in bills that the Senate has sent to the House.
“They go too big,” McCarthy said.
“I think that was a mistake,” Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said Thursday when asked about McConnell’s threat. “When you make a threat, you should follow through. … Bluffing doesn’t work when you don’t follow through.”
“Leader McConnell has a different role than other members of the Republican caucus in the Senate and members here,” said GOP Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky. “His job is to regain the majority … He plays the long game and I would never second-guess his tactical moves to do what he needs to do with his members in those states.”
“It is no secret that we have lost ground in suburban areas. We pretty much own rural and small town America, and I think this is a sensible solution to the problem before us,” McConnell said, adding he hoped it would be “viewed favorably by voters in the suburbs that we need to regain in order to hopefully be a majority next year.”
And when he backed the infrastructure deal last summer, McConnell said it became “unnecessarily” politicized given that public works projects have long had bipartisan backing.
But when asked Thursday about his support of the chips bill amid the Democratic breakthrough on their party’s economic package, McConnell didn’t hold back.
Other Republicans pinned the blame on Manchin, who had initially balked at including climate and tax provisions in the bill before agreeing to both in a sprawling package that would also take aim at prescription drug prices and extend expiring health care subsidies.
“It’s an amazing flip-flop,” Cornyn said of Manchin. “You can’t trust anybody around here anymore.”
Yet the McConnell critics go beyond Capitol Hill.
Former President Donald Trump, whom McConnell severed ties with after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, has repeatedly called for someone to oust McConnell as GOP leader, though no one has stepped up to the plate or has the support internally to prevent him from staying atop the conference. McConnell, who cemented his legacy by ushering in three conservative Supreme Court justices, maintains a good standing within his own Senate conference.
But in the House, where tensions between the two chambers are hardly new, it’s a different story. His critics there are questioning McConnell’s decision-making and expressing anger that he and other Republicans assisted Democrats in notching a string of key victories in an otherwise difficult political environment for Biden’s party. And the divide between House and Senate Republicans — on everything from policy to politics — could become even more pronounced next year if Republicans win the majority, where they’d have to make deals with a Biden administration on must-pass items like government funding.
Some Republicans believe McConnell was outmaneuvered by Schumer.
McConnell and some of his deputies ended up backing the chips bill on Wednesday as it appeared Democratic discussions on the economic deal were on the brink of collapse — only to learn hours after their vote on the chips bill that Democrats had reached an agreement on the economic package.
“I think everyone got surprised certainly by representations that had been made by Democrats about this deal, and I think there was certain amount of people being blindsided — not only on our side but on the Democrats’ side,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune told CNN when asked if the GOP got played by letting the chips bill go through before the Democrats’ economic deal was cut.
Asked if McConnell played this properly, Thune said: “You’ll have to chat with him about that.”
Some House Republicans have expressed understanding about the position McConnell faces in the 50-50 Senate.
“I think he thought in each case, they got the best deal they could,” said veteran Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican. “He knows when to hold them and when to fold them as well as anybody in this building.”
And House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York said the real anger should be directed at the Democrats.
“In my district, they are most upset with Chuck Schumer,” she said.