Key Points:

• Influence on Policy: Bipartisan reps crucially impact military funding and global conflict responses.
• Bipartisan Index: Measures cross-party work in Congress, with some limitations.
• Notable Figure: Brian Fitzpatrick is the most bipartisan House member, leading the Problem Solvers Caucus.
• While the defense sector is capturing attention in 2025, the smart money is already looking to “the next Nvidia” for 2025’s biggest winners. Access the report for free now.

Austin and Michael discuss the importance of bipartisanship in Congress, particularly in the context of global conflicts and funding decisions related to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel-Hamas. They emphasize that down-ballot representatives play a crucial role in these decisions. Michael explains the criteria for determining bipartisanship, such as the Bipartisan Index from the Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy. He highlights that while the index is useful, it has limitations, such as not accounting for prolonged absences due to health issues. They then delve into specific examples, identifying the most bipartisan Republicans in the House, with a focus on Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania, who co-chairs the Problem Solvers Caucus.

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Edited Video Transcript:

Hello, everyone.

I’m Austin Smith, and I’m joined by Michael Muir, our defense, military, and now political expert at 24/7 Wall Street.

Michael, we’ve had a lot of conversations about some of the current global conflicts and some of the tensions that exist geopolitically.

And we wanted to spend a little bit of time today talking about the most and the least bipartisan representatives that are in the US government.

Because like you have talked about, so much of what happens geopolitically and internationally is actually driven by what happens down ballot.

So people can be focused on Harris versus Trump, and that’s certainly obviously an important dynamic to watch for geopolitical reasons.

But so much about how Ukraine or the Taiwan conflict or Israel-Hamas gets handled or funded or not funded is the result of down ballot.

So let’s jump into this a little bit.

First, we should probably talk about how we determined nonpartisan and bipartisan here.

So can you please set the table for us on the criteria we’re looking at here, and then we’ll jump into some specifics?

Absolutely.

Yeah, there are a lot of really good analytical tools available to us to get a good snapshot of who is most and least willing to reach across the aisle.

One of the best tools that we have is an annual report called the Bipartisan Index that is produced by the non-profit, non-partisan groups, the Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy.

So the Bipartisan Index pretty much just tracks how often and how effectively members of Congress work with members of the other party in crafting legislation, writing resolutions, amendments, that sort of thing.

But there are some, so as useful as it is, there are some caveats we should be aware of that can affect a person’s position on the ranking that might not actually be truly reflective of how or how bipartisan they are or not.

So, for example, if a member of Congress has a prolonged absence, that’s obviously going to lower their bipartisan ranking just by virtue of the fact they weren’t in Congress long enough to craft a lot of legislation.

So the latest, and again, we should also point out that this isn’t for this year, it’s the most up-to-date information that we have, which is for the last year.

So, for example, the late Dianne Feinstein naturally missed a lot of votes and didn’t get an awful lot done in her last year in the Senate.

But she was generally quite bipartisan in her approach.

Similarly, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, he missed quite a lot of votes in legislative sessions because of his health problems at the start of his tenure.

So he ranks quite low for bipartisanship, but that might not be a true reflection.

And leadership also can show up a little strangely because they don’t act in the same way when it comes to crafting legislation as regular members of Congress.

So with all of those, we should acknowledge those at the top, but that’s where we get most of our information from.

It’s a very useful tool, but it’s not perfect.

It has limitations.

OK, well, thank you so much for those asterisks and caveats.

Good to hold ourselves to account here.

And if we’re claiming it’s going to be bipartisan or not or partisan.

So let’s just jump into it then.

Let’s look at the most bipartisan Republicans in the House.

And again, just to confirm, for our viewers here.

The reason this matters is that bipartisan representatives in both parties are likely going to be the swing on whether or not some of these initiatives get funded militarily.

So we want to understand who are these bipartisan representatives in both parties so that we can get a line of sight into what will happen with Ukraine funding or perhaps a Taiwan response.

So let’s jump into it.

Who are the most bipartisan Republicans in the House?

Well, if we’re talking just in general about bipartisan representatives in the House, there are a few indicators that we can turn to that will tell us quite a lot about their approach.

We can look, first of all, at the caucuses they are part of.

So one of the main bipartisan caucuses in the House is the Problem Solvers Caucus, which, as its name implies, is a bipartisan group that looks to reach common ground in a lot of areas for legislation.

The most bipartisan member of the House is the Republican Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania.

He is the co-chair of that caucus.

The other indicator would be how competitive or not their district is, which may seem quite self-explanatory because if you are in a competitive district, you can’t just appeal to the base.

You need to have a broader appeal to get elected.

So swing districts, which are becoming increasingly rare through redistricting, are a pretty strong indicator as well for the House.

So yeah, the two takeaways here are what caucus are they a member of?

I mean, if it’s a more moderate one, so it’s not just, you know, most of the most bipartisan Democrats and Republicans alike will be found in the Problem Solvers Caucus, but there are other moderate groups like the New Democrat Coalition or Main Street Republicans, which will indicate more of a willingness to reach across the aisle.

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