Terray Sylvester/VW Pics via ZUMA Wire
On Thursday afternoon, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the American Health Care Act, which would repeal the Affordable Care Act and leave in its place…something else. We don’t really know what AHCA would do because it passed the House before the Congressional Budget Office could score it. The CBO’s report on the earlier iteration of AHCA, which died in the House in March, revealed that it would cause an additional 24 million Americans to go without health insurance by 2026.
As expected, no Democrats voted for AHCA; 217 Republicans did, including some of the most vulnerable members of the caucus.
The bill picked up support from 14 Republicans whose districts were carried by Hillary Clinton in November:
Carlos Curbelo (Fla.): Clinton 56.7–Trump 40.6
David Valadao (Calif.): Clinton 55.2–Trump 39.7
Ed Royce (Calif.): Clinton 51.5–Trump 42.9
Erik Paulsen (Minn.): Clinton 50.8–Trump 41.4
Darrell Issa (Calif.): Clinton 50.7–Trump 43.2
Steve Knight (Calif.): Clinton 50.3–Trump 43.6
Peter Roskam (Ill.): Clinton 50.2–Trump 43.2
Mimi Walters (Calif.): Clinton 49.8–44.4
Martha McSally (Ariz.): Clinton 49.6–Trump 44.7
Jeff Denham (Calif.): Clinton 48.5–Trump 45.5
Pete Sessions (Texas): Clinton 48.5–Trump 46.6
John Culberson (Texas): Clinton 48.5–Trump 47.1
Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.): Clinton 47.9–Trump 46.2
Kevin Yoder (Kans.): Clinton 47.2–Trump 46.0
The bill picked up an additional 10 votes from Republicans in districts where Trump received less than 50 percent of the vote:
Jason Lewis (Minn.): Trump 46.5–Clinton 45.3
Don Bacon (Neb.): Trump 48.2–Clinton 46
David Young (Iowa): Trump 48.5–Clinton 45
Rod Blum (Iowa) Trump 48.7–Clinton 45.2
Randy Hultgren (Ill.): Trump 48.7–Clinton 44.8
Rodney Frelinghuysen (N.J.): Trump 48.8–Clinton 47.9
Scott Taylor (Va.): Trump 48.8–Clinton 45.4
Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.): Trump 49.6–Clinton 47.9
Dave Trott (Mich.): Trump 49.7–Clinton 45.4
Rodney Davis (Ill.) Trump 49.7–Clinton 44.2
Of course, this is a rudimentary way to look at it the vote’s political impact. The bill would hit some districts harder than others, and some districts are trending more Democratic or Republican. (Here’s one district-by-district estimate of how the repeal would affect different districts.)
Thursday’s vote will likely play a central role in the 2018 campaign, much as the Affordable Care Act did in 2010. Democrats can take solace in one number from FiveThirtyEight‘s Nate Silver: Democrats who voted for the Affordable Care Act in early 2010 lost between 10 and 15 points off their expected vote share that November. But Thursday’s vote took place more than a year and a half before the midterms. And it was only a few months ago that Democrats believed the nomination of someone who bragged on tape about committing sexual assault would hand them the Senate.
