Who Are The ‘Biden Republicans?’ Moderate GOP Members Getting New Name

With more radical views tied to former President Donald Trump and some of his most loyal supporters in Congress seeming to take over the GOP, other, more center-right members of the Republican party are starting to get a new name—The “Biden Republicans.”

The term is being used to describe a certain subset of Republican voters, who have been showing growing support for some of the President’s policies, including his COVID-19 Relief Bill and current Infrastructure Bill. According to MSNBC’s Ari Melber, the group consists mainly of more suburban Republican voters who are highly educated and supportive of diversity, and overall, the support that seems to be growing for Biden is reminiscent of the Bipartisan strategy that made Ronald Reagan appealing—and earned him a group of “Reagan Democrats.”

The idea of “Biden Republicans” has come out with the whispers of a potential third-party formation that isn’t expected to gain ground, and with the Republican Party increasingly being seen in more extremist ways, the more central voters are now finding themselves at a crossroads, where they could slowly start shifting to the Democratic side.

According to an opinion column by Max Boot in The Washington Post, while President Biden is still struggling on some Republican support in Congress, the appeal he has for the voters because of his policies and the radical right views of the rest of the party is growing. Overall, he has a 53.1 percent approval rating, 73 percent approval on his handling of the pandemic, a 60 percent approval rating on his handling of the economy and a 64 percent approval rating on tax hikes for corporations to fund his infrastructure plan. Such numbers show that there is some crossover from the Republican party.

However, there is still some battle he would face. Not only do more extreme members of the party—such as Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz—still have support, but there are Republican voters who still express loyalty to Donald Trump as well.

According to a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll, 81 percent of Republicans still have a favorable impression of Trump, 60 percent still feel the election was stolen from him, 28 percent felt he only was partially to blame for the Capitol attack and 55 percent felt the Insurrection was led by left-wing protestors.

The anti-Democratic message from the more extreme side of the party still remains strong as well. As a negative response to new, more restrictive voting laws in Georgia grows, the extreme right has been finding themselves taking on the role of boycotting businesses and organizations which have spoken against the laws—despite their previous stance against “cancel culture.”

Leading that charge has been none other than Trump himself, who encouraged his supporters to boycott all the companies who spoke out.

“The Democrats in Georgia really push the Republicans around, like the so-called consent decree, which was illegally signed by the secretary of state without legislative approval—a Democrat DREAM,” he said. “Boycott all of the woke companies that don’t want voter I.D. and free and fair elections.”

“It is finally time for Republicans and Conservatives to fight back—we have more people than they do—by far! Boycott Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS, and Merck,” he also said.