Which is one reason just 13 House Republicans on Tuesday opposed Trump’s emergency declaration to bypass Congress and seize about $8 billion in funds to build hundreds of miles of a southwest border wall. And that’s why on Wednesday just eight Republicans voted for the Democratic proposal to create a near-universal background check on gun purchases.

AD

Both of those issues provided headaches for House Republicans in the 2018 midterms, particularly in the suburban battlegrounds that broke so sharply against them en route to a loss of 40 seats and the majority. Many sharp GOP strategists are looking for candidates next year who can appeal to swing-district voters.

AD

For now, however, the herd mentality has taken root among House Republicans and will only reinforce the idea that they are Trump’s most loyal defenders in Washington.

Of the 197 Republicans in the House, just three represent districts that Hillary Clinton won over Trump in 2016, down from more than 20 last year. That ideological purity creates a reflex action in which most Republicans see backing Trump as their first instinct, no matter what his standing might be in national polls.

So if Trump is supporting a border wall, they rally around him, even if it might contradict their own positions during Barack Obama’s presidency and the executive actions he took on immigration.

AD

“I mean, I’ll be real honest, if Obama had done this, Republicans would be going nuts. That’s just the reality. Even if Obama had the authority to do it, just like I think President Trump does,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a 20-year congressman, told The Washington Post’s Erica Werner.

AD

Democrats expected very little crossover appeal for a vote that shaped up more as a test of one’s loyalty, or opposition, to Trump and his clamor for a border wall.

“My guess is that the folks who are going to vote with us, they’re probably in swing districts; I’m guessing they’re in districts Hillary Clinton won or they are in districts that are trending more suburban,” Rep. Cheri Bustos (Ill.), chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, predicted before Tuesday’s roll call.

AD

Bustos was off on her prediction by a little bit. The 13 GOP defections on the resolution opposing the emergency order included four politically safe conservatives who hold more libertarian views.

On Wednesday, the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats on the background-check bill all come from districts in the suburbs that are trending more diverse.

AD

There’s a rich tradition of the minority party trying to forge unity and not working in bipartisan fashion, especially on a president’s key priority.

After the 2006 midterms that then-President George W. Bush dubbed a “thumping,” House Republicans beat back Democratic proposals to force a timeline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. In March 2007 just two Republicans joined Democrats in approving a funding plan that included a deadline.

AD

In February 2011, after the 2010 midterm “shellacking,” as Obama dubbed it, Democrats did not provide a single vote to the new GOP House majority when it passed a spending plan that cut more than $60 billion from federal agency budgets.

It’s an early exercise in trying to build team spirit for a dejected caucus thrust into the minority, even if the ultimate outcome is sometimes far different.

AD

In 2007, facing Bush’s opposition and a Senate filibuster, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) eventually passed a funding plan that included most of what the president sought for Iraq. And in 2011 House Republicans agreed to greatly reduced spending cuts.

But course corrections usually have to be made, one way or another. And the other Republicans who opposed Trump on Tuesday’s wall vote are those trying to point the party in a different direction, one more tolerant of minorities and women that includes a return to a more globally oriented economy than Trump’s “America First” vision.

AD

For Reps. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), whose districts favored Clinton in 2016 and where they barely survived their 2018 races, opposing Trump was the easy political move. They also voted with Democrats on gun legislation.

AD

And Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who clung to victory in 2018 in a district north of Portland, Ore., that is growing more suburban, also opposed the border emergency.

The warning sign for GOP leaders came from five votes in particular against Trump. Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), both in their second terms, have pushed for the GOP to become a more socially modern party.

AD

And the other three are senior Republicans who are effectively thumbing their nose at party leadership. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who faced a somewhat difficult race last year but still won by 10 percentage points, spent the past decade in elected GOP leadership and knows that leaders want their rank and file to take tough votes.

Having left leadership, she chose to stand with her friend, Herrera Beutler, against leaders.

AD

Finally, Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Greg Walden (R-Ore.) are prominent moderates with deep ties to former Republican speakers John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). Walden ran the party’s campaign apparatus for four years under those two, while Upton chaired the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

AD

Walden replaced Upton as the top Republican on that panel, and together they have regularly bucked Trump and leadership on border security and government funding votes this year despite their senior status.

For now, these Republicans remain isolated in their caucus opposing Trump and leadership, with little indication that a mutiny is brewing.