Those leading the defunding effort represent districts where the president lost handily. | AP Photos Many in GOP have no reason to deal

The prevailing wisdom ahead of the government shutdown was that tea party lawmakers who agitated for it would fold within a few days, once they got an earful from angry constituents and felt the sting of bad headlines. House GOP leaders called it a “touch the stove” moment for the band of Republican rebels, when ideology would finally meet reality.

But there’s another reality that explains why that thinking may well be wrong, and the country could be in for a protracted standoff: Most of the Republicans digging in have no reason to fear voters will ever punish them for it.


The vast majority of GOP lawmakers are safely ensconced in districts that, based on the voter rolls, would never think of electing a Democrat. Their bigger worry is that someone even more conservative than they are — bankrolled by a cadre of uncompromising conservative groups — might challenge them in a primary.

( POLITICO's full government shutdown coverage)

So from the standpoint of pure political survival, there’s every incentive to keep the government closed in what looks like a futile protest over Obamacare. The latest theory gaining currency in Congress is that it will take a potential default on the nation’s debt in a few weeks to bring the crisis to a head.

Just look at the ringleaders of the defund-Obamacare effort in the House: Georgia Rep. Tom Graves, a Tea Party Caucus member, represents a district where Obama won just a quarter of the vote. Fewer than two in five voters in Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie’s district backed the president for reelection. And Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador, a poster child of the conservative Club for Growth, is in a district where Obama got just 32 percent.

“Why is it us [that has] to give up the fight? How about we actually negotiate?” asked GOP Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who represents an east Oklahoma district where Obama received 32 percent.

( PHOTOS: 18 times the government has shut down)

The congressional map is far more gerrymandered today than it was 17 years ago during the last shutdown, when House Speaker Newt Gingrich was negotiating with President Bill Clinton. According to David Wasserman, who analyzes House races for the Cook Political Report, 79 of the 236 House Republicans serving during the last shutdown resided in districts that Clinton won in 1992. Today, just 17 of the 232 House Republicans are in districts that Obama won in 2012.

“Is redistricting a big deal in the sense that there is a greater threat from a primary than a general election? The answer to that is yes,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster and adviser to Boehner. “It’s clearly an element.”

( POLITICO interview: Rep. Steve King predicts longer shutdown)

The post-2010 redistricting process combined with recent demographic shifts helped solidify the Republican majority; few GOP seats are seen as seriously endangered in the midterm elections. But those factors have also put House Speaker John Boehner in a straitjacket, forced to answer to a Republican conference that has little appetite for resolving the standoff on anything resembling Democratic terms.

In an interview with POLITICO on Tuesday, Iowa Rep. Steve King, a tea party hero, predicted that the shutdown “won’t be a day or two. It will be a little longer than that, at least.”

Boehner has seen this movie play out in nearly every major legislative battle over the past year. During the “fiscal cliff” fight late last year, the speaker was forced to pull a bill from the floor after conservatives rallied against it. A similar dynamic sank a farm bill in June.

( Also on POLITICO: Rand Paul's government shutdown diplomacy)

Republican strategists hope that by the time voters head to the polls 13 months from now they will have forgotten about the shutdown. It’s possible, they say, that anger about Obamacare will crowd out bad memories of the current mess.

But GOP operatives are also aware that the longer the shutdown lasts, the more likely it is to sway races next year. And they know that there’s little they can do to persuade conservative members to move on from the fight. As much as they want members like Graves, Massieand Labrador to get on board with their view that the shutdown could hurt the party in moderate districts, they realize it’s just not going to happen.

The conservative wing of the party has been bucked up by a constellation of right-leaning organizations like the Club for Growth and the Madison Project, which are sure to reward the lawmakers for their anti-Obamacare efforts come election season.

“We’re telling Republicans to hold the line,” Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots told POLITICO.

It’s hard to overstate just how small the 2014 general election playing field is. Last month, University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato published an analysis finding that 375 of 435 seats — 86 percent — are safe. That means much of the action will be in primaries. Already, a few House Republicans are facing serious threats from within their own party.

Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, a Boehner ally, faces a challenge from a candidate endorsed by the Club for Growth. Pennsylvania Rep. Bill Shuster, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman, is trying to fend off an opponent who has the backing of RedState founder Erick Erickson. House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who helped House Republicans capture the majority in 2010 as the National Republican Congressional Committee head, is being challenged by a Dallas tea party leader.

In each of these races, Republican incumbents will have to answer criticism that they’re insufficiently conservative and haven’t done enough to combat the Obama agenda.

If there is a path for Boehner to reach a compromise and pass a “clean” continuing resolution that doesn’t attempt to delay or hobble the health care law, it might be through blue-state Republicans.

So far, at least 14 House Republicans have said they want to pass a clean CR. Each represents a moderate district, in states that Obama won in 2012. More than half of them — Pennsylvania Reps. Pat Meehan, Mike Fitzpatrick, Charlie Dent and Lou Barletta, New Jersey Reps. Jon Runyan and Frank LoBiondo, and New York Reps. Peter King and Michael Grimm — — — reside in that tri-state area.

“Enough is enough,” Runyan, a sophomore member who represents a district Obama won in 2012, told the Burlington County Times. “Put a clean [continuing resolution] on the floor and let’s get on with the business we were sent to do.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Boehner has relied on blue-state Republicans to pass a spending bill. In January, the speaker passed a fiscal cliff bill with the support of 85 Republicans, 70 of whom hailed from states Obama carried. Of the 151 Republicans who opposed the bill, 91 came from states that backed Mitt Romney.

It’s an open question whether Boehner will again turn to the moderate wing of his party, perhaps in concert with Democrats, to end the shutdown. But the electoral map — and the ideological makeup of the Republican conference that stems from it — makes that a tough proposition for the embattled speaker.

Anna Palmer contributed to this report.

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story characterized California Rep. Duncan Hunter as a leader in the effort to defund Obamacare. While he has supported budget resolutions that would defund the health care law, he has not been as outspoken as other members of the Republican Conference.