Dem
51
GOP
49
Disarray isn't only applicable to House Republicans. House Democrats have a sizable amount of it as well. Joe Biden is standing on his head to get the still-unwritten Lankford-Murphy border bill written and passed through the Senate. He is willing to give Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) whatever he wants to get the job done. Lankford is operating in good faith and if he gets what he wants, will move the process along. One of the things he wants is no permanent status for the Dreamers. Biden is willing to accept that to get a bill.
This position has made Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), chair of the House Progressive Caucus, furious. She said: "The president would just do very well to remember it has never worked for Democrats to just take up Republican talking points and think that somehow Republicans are going to turn around and thank us for it." Her opposition, and that of the Progressive Caucus, means that even if a miracle happens and Lankford-Murphy passes the Senate and Johnson holds a vote on it, it could fail due to opposition from progressives. This is what Donald Trump wants. Then he can campaign on "Only I can fix the border." If Republicans hold the House and can pick up one seat in the Senate and Trump wins based on his promises about the border, then Jayapal is probably not going to like what happens next. Sometimes in politics you have to accept things you really don't like to avoid things that are even worse. But not everyone has read the memo.
But maybe Jayapal is just posturing, trying to dissuade Biden as best she can, and when push comes to shove, she will cave and support the leader of her party. Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks the progressive left is a paper tiger and is all bark and no bite. Teixeira thinks that a border deal will pick up more marginal Republicans than it loses progressive Democrats and is thus a net win for the Democrats. William Galston, at the Brookings Institution, thinks that those Democrats who look at things from a "how many votes does this get?" perspective will go along with Biden but those who look at it from a moral perspective won't. Joel Kotkin of the Urban Reform Institute thinks that working-class Latino and Black voters have no interest at all in being inundated with undocumented immigrants who are prepared to work for peanuts. He thinks that for Biden, being tough on the border has only upsides and no downsides. This is why Trump wants to block the bill at all costs. (V)