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Sen. Cory Gardner Breaks With Trump And GOP On The Wall

   DailyWire.com

In order to win a game of chicken — all that a prolonged government shutdown fight amounts to — it is imperative for both sides to diligently keep their troops in line. On Wednesday night, some chinks began to show in Republicans’ collective armor.

The Denver Post editorial board reported that Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) “intends to vote for a clean funding bill that would open the government with no increased border-security funding attached.” The Senate plans to vote later today on two measures — one Republican-backed plan which would reopen closed portions of the federal government with wall funding, and one Democrat-backed plan which would reopen closed portions of the federal government without wall funding. It is now clear how Gardner, the current Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, will vote.

Here is how The Denver Post’s left-leaning editorial board frames it:

The [“clean” funding] measure is likely to get the support of every Democrat in the Senate, including Colorado’s Michael Bennet, but it’s unlikely the bill will pass, as it needs 60 votes and most Republicans are standing firm with Trump. Democrats in the House have already approved a clean funding bill.

Gardner’s spokesman said Wednesday night that the senator has long opposed shutdowns, including the 2013 shutdown. He said Gardner will also vote for the second measure to open the government.

The Post may be correct that “most Republicans are standing firm,” but Gardner still represents a significant defection from the ranks for both President Trump and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Even if Gardner proceeds to procedurally support both measures, as the Post reported and as USA Today corroborates, simply voting for the Democrat-backed “clean” funding plan is a symbolic blow for Republican solidarity. And in the 34th day of a prolonged shutdown fight, symbolic blows can begin to take a toll.

Gardner has been a skeptic of the shutdown fight since its commencement. The Hill noted, as early as January 3rd, that Gardner opposed the tactic:

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who faces a potentially tough reelection in 2020, says Congress should re-open the federal government, even without a deal on funding President Trump’s border wall.

Gardner is the first Senate Republican to call for ending the partial shutdown even without a deal on Trump’s demand for $5 billion to fund a border wall.

“I think we should pass a continuing resolution to get the government back open. The Senate has done it last Congress, we should do it again today,” he said.

Gardner was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014, as part of the red wave that reclaimed leadership of the senior legislative chamber. In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton won Gardner’s home state of Colorado by roughly five points. With the Ross Perot-affected 1992 presidential election as an aberration, Democrats otherwise won Colorado’s Electoral College votes in 2008 for the first time since Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964. In the 2018 gubernatorial election in Colorado, Democrat Jared Polis defeated Republican Walker Stapleton by nearly eleven points.

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