Eight House Republicans who signed onto a bipartisan immigration bill lost their seats in last week’s midterm elections, according to a new report tracking the fallout.
Quick Take
- Eight GOP cosponsors of the DIGNIDAD Act of 2025 were defeated in the midterms, a report says.
- Rep. María Elvira Salazar introduced the bill in July 2025 with 39 total cosponsors, including 19 Republicans.
- Named defeated members include Mike Lawler, David Valadao, Young Kim, Brian Fitzpatrick, Gabe Evans, Monica De La Cruz, Jen Kiggans and Zach Nunn.
- Research shows no proof the bill alone caused any of the losses.
- Immigration has split House Republicans for decades, often along district lines rather than party lines.
A Bill That Split the GOP
Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican, introduced the DIGNIDAD Act of 2025 in July. The bill, known as House Resolution 4393, picked up 39 cosponsors by the time it reached the House floor process, including 19 members of her own party. Early reporting from that month named Salazar along with Lawler, Valadao, Dan Newhouse, Mike Kelly, Fitzpatrick, Evans, Marlin Stutzman, Don Bacon and Kim as Republican backers of the measure.
Critics on the right quickly branded the bill an amnesty measure, arguing it would let people previously removed from the country return under new terms. Supporters framed it differently, but the label stuck in conservative media coverage throughout 2025 and into this year’s campaign season.
Eight Names, One Election Night
A report published November 5 lists eight defeated Republican cosponsors by name: Mike Lawler of New York, David Valadao of California, Young Kim of California, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Gabe Evans of Colorado, Monica De La Cruz of Texas, Jen Kiggans of Virginia, and Zach Nunn of Iowa. All eight had put their names on the bill as cosponsors before this fall’s elections.
The same report places that number inside a larger count. It says 20 Republicans cosponsored the bill overall. Three had already retired, and two were non-voting delegates from Pacific island territories. That left 15 Republican cosponsors actually facing voters, of whom eight lost. The report does not include official vote totals, margins, or state certification records for any of the eight races.
Numbers That Don’t Quite Line Up
The report’s math shifts partway through. It mentions 20 total Republican cosponsors, then later refers to 18 pro-amnesty House Republicans with voting privileges, and says only five were expected to certainly return to Congress. Those figures are not fully reconciled against each other or against official House membership and retirement records. Readers looking for a clean ledger of who cosponsored, who retired, and who lost will not find one in the available material.
Correlation Without Proof of Cause
Nothing in the available reporting shows that cosponsoring the DIGNIDAD Act decided any of the eight races. No campaign ads, debate transcripts, or polling data tying the bill to voter decisions appear in the record. Academic research on House immigration votes finds that lawmakers’ positions are often shaped by district boundaries and national polarization trends rather than any single bill.
Separate research on political accountability finds that voters frequently judge lawmakers through a partisan lens, even on issues that are not strictly partisan, and even without specific information about a member’s record. That pattern fits a pattern seen for decades: immigration splits both parties internally, and district-level factors like demographics, fundraising, and candidate quality usually matter as much as any one vote.
What the available record does show is straightforward. Eight Republicans who backed an immigration bill their party’s base largely opposed are no longer in Congress. Whether that overlap reflects voter anger over the bill, broader national conditions, or simply tough individual races remains an open question the current reporting does not answer.
Sources:
thegatewaypundit.com, isps.yale.edu, brookings.edu
