There's a good reason 20 Republicans voted against the GOP healthcare bill

pulse

May 5, 2017 3:58 PM

It looks like a lot of Republicans voted against the American Health Care Act because they're worried about losing their seat in 2018.

Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ).

The American Health Care Act squeaked by the House on Thursday, passing with a vote of 217 to 213.

The unanimous opposition by Democrats made up most of the "no" votes, but 20 Republicans also voted against their party's bid to overhaul the US healthcare system.

While there may be policy reasons for these members to vote against the bill — concerns over preexisting conditions or the bill not going far enough in repealing Obamacare — there's also a compelling political reason.

The Cook Partisan Voting Index, which takes the average margin of victory in a district over the past two election cycles and calculates the partisan lean of that area, shows that many of the "no" votes by Republicans came from representatives in vulnerable seats.

The average Cook PVI for the 20 Republicans against the AHCA was 3.6 points toward Republicans. But when you remove the districts of conservative Reps. Thomas Massie, Walter Jones, and Andy Biggs (who voted against the AHCA because they didn't think it went far enough in repealing Obamacare), the score drops to 1.6 points toward the GOP. In fact, four members that voted against the AHCA are in districts that, based on Cook's score, lean Democratic.

Here's a full list of Republicans who voted against the bill: