Some of the House GOP’s most vulnerable members told Speaker Mike Johnson in a private GOP call on Wednesday that they’re worried his spending strategy heightens the risk of an electorally damaging government shutdown.

During a private, 30-minute call with GOP lawmakers Wednesday, Johnson laid out his plan to quickly pass a spending bill that would punt the current Oct. 1 shutdown deadline into March. He’s also going to attach legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. It’s the exact strategy pushed by House conservatives, and will almost certainly be rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Right now, it’s not even clear it has enough GOP support to pass the House.

New York Rep. Nick LaLota, a vulnerable first-term Republican, asked Johnson on the call what the speaker would do if the Senate rejected that package and instead sent back a straightforward funding bill without the voting policy proposal, known as the SAVE Act. LaLota argued that allowing a shutdown would mean 10 vulnerable GOP incumbents lose their races in November — enough that Republicans would lose control of the House — according to two people on the call.

The speaker declined to answer how he would respond in that situation, saying he didn’t want his plans to leak to the press. He also argued: You don’t go into a fight planning to fail.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), whom Democrats are also targeting in November, also pressed leadership during the call and sought clarity about the strategy behind the funding plan, a person familiar with her comments confirmed. She asked: “How long do we take this? Is the intent to message ‘Dems oppose SAVE,’ but are we going to take this to a shutdown?”

It’s a familiar House Republican fight, but the political stakes are significantly higher this time. Vulnerable members don’t want to flirt with a shutdown so close to the election, especially when the ultimate outcome — a clean spending bill with no policy bills attached — feels inevitable. Plus, with centrists nervous about prompting a shutdown and some conservatives planning to oppose the spending bill regardless of policy riders, the strategy could mean Johnson and House Republicans tee up a bill that can’t even pass their own chamber.

Johnson outlined his thinking for taking that risk on the call, arguing that Congress would need another six months to reconcile the $100-billion difference between Republican House and Democratic Senate leaders on topline spending numbers. If they kicked the deadline into December as Democrats want, Johnson argued, they’d likely just need another short-term patch and have to deal with a spending fight at Christmas. And attaching the SAVE Act was important to show Republican voters that the party cares about elections, he said.

Plus, the speaker noted a new March deadline could give former President Donald Trump the chance to influence spending, if he wins the presidency.

Republican leaders want to put the conservative-favored stopgap government funding bill on the floor for a vote next week. Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told lawmakers on the call that he’ll start whipping the funding plan on Monday night, when his team will meet in person for the first time since late July.

Most Republicans on the appropriations committee, as well as some members of leadership, also prefer a stopgap bill that goes into early December. Still, many are unlikely to buck Johnson on the floor.

Those governing-minded Republicans aren’t planning to oppose a short-term funding patch, known as a continuing resolution or a CR, that includes the SAVE Act, at least not yet. But they view it as an opening move Johnson is making to placate spending-weary conservatives, not as an actual solution. Ultimately, they have no interest in shutting down the government or getting into a preelection standoff with Democrats.

“You realize the federal law already says that … you have to be a citizen to vote. So, from my perspective, I hope it doesn’t hold up the funding,” said Rep. Larry Buschon (R-Ind.).

“I think that ultimately we will … pass a clean CR into early December.”

Further complicating matters, Johnson could also face pushback from his right flank on his funding plan. Some conservatives vowed last year to oppose any short-term funding patch — a dynamic that could easily tank the GOP’s vote count, especially if centrists aren’t on board.

The ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus last month called on leadership to tee up a continuing resolution into early 2025 with the voting bill attached, taking an official position that requires the support of 80 percent of its members. But some members who oppose any stop-gap funding bill are privately complaining about that position, according to a person familiar, granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics.

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), a Freedom Caucus member who is retiring from Congress, appeared to hint at that frustration on Wednesday, predicting that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would just reject any spending bill House Republicans pass that includes their proposal on non-citizen voting.

“He will reject it when tied to a CR,” he said in a post on X. “We should be focusing on passing ALL 12 appropriations bills!”

A spokesperson for Rosendale said that the Montana Republican “has always been and continues to be against any form of a CR.”

Still, conservatives who support the spending strategy are hoping that Trump will bring some skeptics over to their side. They also argue some of the anti-CR sentiments last year were driven by animosity toward then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told other Republicans on Friday that he is “100 percent” convinced the GOP will win both chambers of Congress and the White House despite tight polling, privately sharing the party’s latest seat-by-seat predictions with two months before Election Day.

Johnson spoke on a House GOP conference call during which former President Donald Trump’s campaign aides also briefed members on the state of the race, according to a detailed readout of the call provided to POLITICO.

The Louisiana Republican laid out the path to 218 seats and the House majority, telling members the party considers 211 seats to be safely in their column, with Democrats projected to win 205. That leaves 19 seats — and the majority — up for grabs.

Republicans could “have up to a 13-seat majority on a good night,” Johnson said.

The speaker added that he based this prediction on his experience “on the ground,” noting that he has traveled to 198 cities across 38 states while holding events. And he argued that the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee changes little about the electoral landscape.

Johnson in particular pointed to the Congressional Leadership Fund’s fundraising haul this year, and a generic ballot where Democrats are up 1 point. He argued this is a scenario in which they win based on how House districts are drawn.

Top Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita and Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio then walked members through their perspective of the presidential state of the race, with both claiming that the news media have unfairly covered the Democratic candidate.

LaCivita noted that the upcoming presidential debate on Tuesday will be the first time Harris is actively put to the test. And LaCivita indicated he isn’t counting on Harris faceplanting the way President Joe Biden did in June, though he still expects Trump to emerge from the debate stronger.

“If we are consistent on messaging and stand together, it’ll be a landslide,” LaCivita told the call attendees, according to the readout.

He also noted that they are competitive in multiple battleground states and projected confidence in flipping the Senate, arguing that Montana and West Virginia — which would be sufficient to win the majority as long as Republicans don’t suffer unexpected defeats in Florida or Texas — are theirs to win.

Fabrizio, the Trump campaign pollster, cited Nate Silver’s forecast model and RealClearPolitics polling averages as he walked through their chances of beating Harris, some of which were obtained by POLITICO.

He also pointed to a voter group showing the campaign promising support: voters who have second jobs, noting that this has led them to outperform with minority communities.

The Trump campaign additionally laid out various voter registration trends in various battleground states and touted their mobilization efforts across the country, citing canvassing, phone-banking and hand-written postcard writing to voters as a way to get out the vote.

Speaker Mike Johnson is rolling out the House GOP’s strategy for a high-stakes government funding fight, teeing up a showdown with Senate Democrats ahead of the Oct. 1 shutdown deadline.

House Republicans on Friday unveiled a stopgap funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution, that will fund the government at largely current levels through March 28. The funding measure includes a GOP proposal to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections — a measure that former President Donald Trump insisted on but is a non-starter for Senate Democrats.

The stopgap also includes $10 billion to boost FEMA’s disaster aid fund, depleted after hurricanes in Texas and Florida, along with West Coast wildfires and severe storms across the Midwest and Northeast. Republicans also included nearly $2 billion for Navy submarines, a total requested by the White House.

The speaker called the bill rollout “a critically important step” for House Republicans, saying in a statement that Congress “has a responsibility” to both fund the government and “ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”

Johnson wants to put the bill on the floor on Wednesday in an effort to squeeze Democrats on non-citizen voting, which is already banned in federal elections but is still a top Republican focus heading into peak campaign season. But the GOP spending plan is all but doomed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a joint statement.

OMB Director Shalanda Young added that Republicans are “wasting time” and that “there is a clear, bipartisan path to responsibly fund the government.”

But it’s not yet certain that Johnson has the votes to even get it through the House given skepticism from multiple corners of his own conference.

A small bloc of conservative members are skeptical of any CR, even if it’s loaded up with partisan wins. One person familiar with the House GOP’s internal dynamics estimated that camp has roughly five members — smaller than last year, when a similar headache thwarted then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s funding plan, but still large enough to cause headaches for GOP leadership.

Johnson is also facing questions from a coalition of centrists, battleground members and governing-minded Republicans, who believe they will eventually need to cut a deal with Democrats and pass a clean spending extension by Oct. 1. Though those members are signaling they could go along with Johnson’s plans for now, they don’t want to see the government shut down over the GOP’s voting fight.

But Johnson’s right flank demanded that he attach the non-citizen voting bill and argued that Republicans should kick the funding deadline into March, when they hope Trump will be back in office and give them more leverage in any spending negotiations. Trump, for his part, has floated that Republicans should shut down the government unless they get the citizenship voting bill attached.

Notably, the stopgap bill does not include a farm bill extension, despite House GOP leaders raising interest in recent days about attaching a one-year extension. House Republicans have been privately discussing the matter for several weeks now.

But key agriculture lawmakers, including Republicans, only want to negotiate a farm bill extension after the election. That means lawmakers will need to pass a short-term extension — or break the current deadlock on a new $1.5 trillion reauthorization — before the end of the year.

Separately from the stopgap, House Republicans hope to swiftly pass a $3 billion bill that would address the beginnings of a $15 billion veterans funding shortfall, which also includes provisions demanding answers from the Biden administration on how the Department of Veterans Affairs racked up the budget gap.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said his chamber would seek to pass a continuing resolution free from “poison pills or Republican extremism” to keep the government open ahead of an end-of-the-month deadline.

In a dear colleague letter released Sunday, Schumer said the Senate would seek to avert “a pointless and painful government shutdown” as lawmakers complete what’s scheduled to be their final three weeks in Washington before the fall elections.

Schumer’s path would also place the chamber at odds with the Republican-controlled House’s plan to pass a short-term funding patch that includes a provision requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote in federal elections, something opposed by President Joe Biden’s White House and key Senate Democrats.

“As I have said before, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way,” Schumer said. “Despite Republican bluster, that is how we’ve handled every funding bill in the past, and this time should be no exception.”

Schumer vowed his chamber would also continue to approve “well-qualified judges and nominees” and vowed to pursue bipartisan bills like the annual defense policy bill, “rail safety, lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs, and artificial intelligence, among others.”

“While we won’t be able to achieve all of these goals before the election, it is my hope that our Republican colleagues will work with us to make as much progress as possible,” the New York Democrat wrote.

The September work sprint comes as Democrats face an uphill battle to maintain their effective 51-seat majority. A number of incumbents, such as Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), face tough races for reelection.