Tenney Voted Against Creating Thousands of Jobs

Will she vote to repeal the CHIPS Act if she gets the chance?

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY24) picked up a shovel at a Micron groundbreaking in January 2026 and told the world she'd been "honored to lead this effort in the House." The record tells a different story: she voted against the law that made the project possible, and waited more than three years to do anything legislatively related to it.

The Timeline

Against It, Then For It: Flip Then Flop

Republicans built an entire 2004 campaign around "I was for it before I was against it." Tenney's record runs the opposite direction: against the CHIPS Act, then co-sponsoring an increase in a CHIPS-created tax credit and taking credit for the jobs three years later, once the ribbon-cutting was scheduled and the cameras were rolling. The plant itself was popular from the moment it was announced in October 2022 — it's Tenney's position on it that changed. It is a literal reversal: she voted against creating the manufacturing tax credit as part of CHIPS in 2022, then voted to increase that same tax credit in 2025. Flip-flop.

During the House debate on the bill, she went further, arguing that CHIPS research funding flowing to universities posed a security risk: much of the supported research, she said, "will be executed in partnership with universities, which we know are notoriously vulnerable to Chinese espionage."

Republican Efforts to Repeal the CHIPS Act

Tenney's "lead the effort" claim looks even shakier next to what her own party has been trying to do to that law. In October 2024, then-candidate Trump called CHIPS a "bad" deal on Joe Rogan's podcast. Days later, at a get-out-the-vote rally for Republican Rep. Brandon Williams, Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Republicans would "probably" repeal the CHIPS Act if Trump won — before walking it back within hours, saying it was "not on the agenda for repeal." Once in office, Trump said in his March 4, 2025 address to a joint session of Congress, that the CHIPS Act was "a horrible, horrible thing" and asked Johnson, on camera, to repeal it.

Congressional Republicans balked. Senate GOP aides called repeal "dead on arrival." But "dead on arrival" isn't dead. The real test comes during the FY2026 appropriations fight, typically settled in December after the midterm elections. That's when Congress decides whether to keep funding CHIPS. Trump has already shown that he'll withhold his signature to make a point. It isn't a stretch to imagine him doing the same with CHIPS money bound for New York.

Meanwhile, Tenney votes with Trump on nearly everything. If he revives the push to repeal CHIPS this December, the question is whether she'd protect the law that's bringing thousands of jobs, or fall in line with a party that's tried to kill it twice already.

A Familiar Pattern

This fits a pattern you've seen before from her and her Western New York Republican colleagues: vote "NO" on the funding, then show up for the ribbon cutting. Last year, Tenney and Rep. Nick Langworthy were reliable Trump votes on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and roughly 18% from SNAP. Claiming credit for popular projects while voting against the programs that fund them isn't new — it's the playbook. Williams, the Republican who actually represented the Micron district and lost his seat over it, has since landed a top nuclear security post in the Trump administration despite voters showing him the door and not being qualified for the job.