Sometimes, it is what is not said that rings the loudest.
As the US waits to see which party will control the House of Representatives next year, several pro-Ukraine Republican representatives, some of them still waiting to see if they have been given a mandate to return in 2025, have been silent on the election of their party’s leader, President-elect Donald Trump.
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Kyiv Post profiled five pro-Ukraine Republican House incumbents in October: Jen Kiggans of Virginia, Joe Wilson of South Carolina, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Mike Lawler and Anthony D’Esposito of New York. So far none of them have offered even a word of congratulations to Trump on social media, either out of concerns of what his presidency will mean for the House’s agenda next year or worries of how pro-Trump talk would play back home.
In her response to the election outcomes, a victorious Kiggans kept her reference to the “red wave” victories across the country measured and subdued:
“I’m incredibly honored that voters in Southeast Virginia have once again chosen commonsense conservatism to represent them in Washington. It is a duty I do not take lightly,” the former Navy helicopter pilot wrote on social media.
“We’ve worked tirelessly to be an independent voice for our Commonwealth in Washington. My priorities are unchanged: securing a strong economy, securing our southern border, ensuring our communities and families are kept safe, and providing peace through strength on the world stage.”
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The conservatives won what can only be described as a landslide in Washington, giving them control of the Senate and handing the first popular-vote victory to a Republican presidential candidate in 20 years.
Elections in the House are proving to be a slightly different story. As of Wednesday night, coming up on 48 hours after the first polls opened on Election Day, only one of the 435 seats has gone from left to right, and as dozens of races drag on into Thursday, control of the lower chamber still hangs in the balance.
While Fitzpatrick, Kiggans, Lawler and Wilson all comfortably won re-election, D’Esposito trailed his Democratic challenger Laura Gillen by about one percent as the final votes were being counted in Long Island, NY on Wednesday night. A flip of that seat likely would not effect the balance of any vote for aid to Kyiv, as Gillen also has pledged her full support for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the five Republican incumbents strongly opposed to sending any further dollars to Ukraine that Kyiv Post highlighted in October won with little trouble on Tuesday, except for Scott Perry, who was still locked in a neck-and-neck race Wednesday night in his battleground district in Pennsylvania.
It’s anyone’s guess where Perry’s centrist Democratic opponent, TV anchor Janelle Stelson, would stand on Ukraine if elected as she has had precious little to say on the topic in the campaign trail. But if elected, chances are good that, as a freshman congresswoman, she would toe the Democratic party line.
One of the surprise victories among those anti-Ukraine incumbents was Anna Paulina Luna, who represents hurricane-ravaged Pinellas County in Florida, and just a day before the district was devastated by the storm had voted against additional federal hurricane relief. Nonetheless, she cleared the bar on Tuesday by almost 10%.
Perhaps it was the recent cover on Maxim magazine, proclaiming her as an “American Maverick.”
One thing observers can count on is that the most caustically anti-Ukrainian voices on Capitol Hill will be even further emboldened by the Trump train’s loud, rumbling return to the White House. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Paul Gosar of Arizona and the rest of the core MAGA gang all resoundingly won their districts and are coming back to the Hill with a Republican-led Senate next door and their champion in the Oval Office.
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