Weigel

Only 28 Republicans Vote for the “Clean” Debt Limit Hike

Cathy McMorris Rodgers wasn’t one of them.

Photo by Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Close, but not clutch-your-chest-and-panic close. Republicans got a total of 221 votes for their last-ditch bill to raise the debt limit without conditions. Only two Democrats voted no: Georgia Rep. John Barrow (whose district gave 55 percent of the vote to Mitt Romney in 2012) and Utah Rep. Jim Matheson (who’s retiring but expected to make a run for statewide office). Only 28 Republicans voted “aye.” Among them:

The leadership. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and Peter Roskam, all in the leadership, helped get the bill over the line. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and James Lankford did not—no coincidence that Lankford is now running for U.S. Senate.

The swing-district guys. Chris Collins, Charlie Dent, Mike Fitzpatrick, Mike Grimm, Richard Hanna, Frank LoBiondo, Gary Miller, and David Valadao all represent districts where the president won or was competitive in 2012.

The retiring guys. Howard Coble, Jon Runyan, and Frank Wolf, all calling it quits this year, voted aye, though a bunch of their fellow retirees (Michele Bachmann, Spencer Bachus, Jim Gerlach, Tim Griffin) voted no.

The other important no votes? Every 2014 Senate candidate, of course, but also Paul Ryan, whose decision to go red or green can move dozens of colleagues.

Democrats celebrated their total victory by trolling:

Republicans took solace in the fact that, at least, the Democrats had made a spelling error.