The Megabill Missed Opportunity

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.

Congress is about to pass the unpopular debt-exploding, Medicaid-cutting megabill. Charlie Mahtesian at Politico:

One astute conservative student of the realignment likened the legislation “to a death march through a series of choices that nobody really wanted to be making.”

“[It’s] not something that has an especially coherent logic to it or much prospect of actually accomplishing the things that I think people want,” Oren Cass, founder of the think tank American Compass and a leading advocate of conservative economic populism, told POLITICO Magazine recently.

The failure to imbue the legislation with more of a Trumpist ideological throughline may be due to a few factors; perhaps it’s Trump’s well-known aversion to wonky policy details, or the fact that most Republican lawmakers are still loyal to the Reaganite economic policy they came up with even as they now publicly bow to Trump.

But whether the sprawling bill is ultimately judged a policy success or failure, it lacks an original vision to hold together the constituencies Trump has improbably knitted together — tax relief, border spending, safety net cuts and Biden policy rollbacks aren’t a theory of the case. Sure, it has a few Trumpian frills that nod to the president’s populist campaign pledges, but they are largely small-bore and were scaled back by senators anyway. “No tax on tips” became a temporary tax deduction on tips, for instance. The brief musings about a tax hike on upper-income earners quickly were extinguished by opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Decades from now, no one will point to this legislation as a key building block of a lasting Republican coalition. It’s more likely to be remembered for the $3.3 trillion it is estimated to add to the national debt.

The legislation isn’t just a missed opportunity. It’s also a striking departure from the more disciplined efforts to reshape and reckon with an evolving party that happened in the last Republican administration before Trump. When George W. Bush occupied the White House, Karl Rove, his political architect, pursued a master plan to lock in the party’s newly emerging coalition and ensure its viability over the long haul. The creation of Medicare Part D, the program’s new prescription drug benefit, was designed to blunt the Democratic advantage on health care issues. Immigration reform, which failed, was a nod toward consolidating Bush’s gains with Latino voters.

The Iraq debacle made the efforts moot, but some of the residual effects of Rove’s work remains visible today: the GOP’s edge in the exurbs, its dominant position among evangelicals, the party’s gains with Catholics.

If anything, the megabill threatens to peel off some of the new constituencies of the ascendant Republican coalition or give them cause for concern. The Medicaid spending cuts stand to hit working class people of color and in rural America hard, from the Trump Belt of Appalachia to the Southwest. The income tax cuts and expanded child care tax credit will be warmly welcomed, but wealthier Americans will benefit more.

It’s revealing that there is no quarter of the new coalition that is wildly enthusiastic about the package. Polling suggests Americans largely disapprove of the megabill, though there is support for some of its individual provisions. More important, from the standpoint of the future of the MAGA coalition, are findings like this one: According to a June Washington Post-Ipsos poll on the bill, non-white, non-college graduates — an important part of the new coalition — oppose it by a 41 percent to 18 percent margin. Without voters like them, it isn’t really much of a realignment.

Todd Achilles

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. Claremont McKenna College alum Todd Achilles is running for the Senate.

Sarah Cutler at The Idaho Statesman:

 Todd Achilles is no longer an Idaho state legislator, and he’s no longer a Democrat. Instead, he’s an independent, now challenging a longtime Idaho Republican senator for his seat in Congress.. Achilles, 58, weighed the decision to run against U.S. Sen. Jim Risch for a long time, spurred by frustration with the state of the economy and the dysfunction of the two-party system, he told the Idaho Statesman.

Idaho’s Republican congressional delegates, including Risch, in recent months have faced public outcry over some of President Donald Trump’s policies, including proposals backed by Trump to sell public lands in Idaho for development. Risch has called on lawmakers to reject the proposal — though in April, he voted to reject a budget amendment that would have banned the government from reducing the federal deficit using proceeds from the sale of public lands. “Everybody’s frustrated by the debt, deficits and dysfunction in Washington, DC,” he said. “Too many people are struggling. Their wages are low. They’re having to get health care from Medicaid programs. The whole system is broken.”

Something That Doesn't Smell Right

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.

 Julia Ornedo at The Daily Beast:

The new fragrances are not the first Trump-branded products to hit the market.

Earlier this month, the Trump Organization—run by the president’s sons—introduced an “all-American” iPhone lookalike made in China.

The $499 smartphone, called “T1,” was designed to work seamlessly with Trump Mobile, billed as “a next-generation wireless provider with bold ambitions and a customer-first mission.”

Here he is, folks. The President of the United States selling his new men’s cologne for $199 and women’s perfume for $249. pic.twitter.com/w48dQQ8cod

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 30, 2025

Iran Aftermath

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.

A brief op-ed that originally appeared (in Spanish) at La Tercera:

 The American airstrikes on Iran may have caused severe damage to the country’s nuclear program.  But they will probably have little impact on domestic politics in the United States.

 American voters seldom care about international issues except when American lives or economic interests are at stake.  Events in the Middle East capture public attention only if they involve hostages, terror attacks, or oil shortages.  Fortunately, the bombing has not had any serious material consequences for the United States – at least, not yet.

Even when Americans do think about events in other countries, their opinions increasingly fall along party lines, with Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other.  According to a recent poll from CBS News, 85 percent of Republicans approve of the Iran attacks, while 87 percent of Democrats disapprove.

        

This partisan entrenchment means that presidents cannot move public opinion very much, even when they achieve major successes.  For a decade after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden eluded American efforts to bring him to justice.  In 2011, under President Obama’s leadership, U.S. commandos finally killed him.  But in public opinion polls, Obama’s approval rating rose only a few percentage points for a few weeks.  The following year, he became the first president to win reelection while losing the popular vote share.

So far, the extent of the bombing damage in Iran remains uncertain, which means that each side will have its own interpretation of what happened.  Republicans will echo President Trump’s claim that he obliterated Iran’s nuclear program.  Democrats will say that Trump dishonestly exaggerated his success.  What is clear is that the 2026 congressional elections in the United States are very likely to hinge on other issues, such as the state of the economy.

Tillis

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Annie Karni at NYT:

Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, announced on Sunday that he would not seek re-election next year, a day after President Trump threatened to back a primary challenger against him because Mr. Tillis had said he opposed the bill carrying Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda.

...

In January, Mr. Trump made it clear that he was contemplating finding a primary challenger to Mr. Tillis after the senator expressed grave reservations about his nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. Mr. Tillis eventually fell in line and backed the president’s pick, surrendering to Mr. Trump’s demands for loyalty.

Mr. Tillis in his statement blamed the lack of any middle ground in Congress on both parties, pointing to the recent departures of Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, both conservative-leaning Democrats before Ms. Sinema switched her affiliation to Independent, without naming them.

“When people see independent thinking on the other side, they cheer,” he said. “But when those very same people see independent thinking coming from their side, they scorn, ostracize and even censure them.”

 

Earlier today...

Donna King at Carolina Journal:

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is under fire from President Donald Trump, who announced via social media this weekend that he may support a primary challenger to Tillis in the 2026 Senate race. The move comes after Tillis opposed advancing Trump’s high-profile legislative proposal—the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—in a narrowly divided US Senate vote.

In posts on Truth Social, Trump blasted Tillis for what he called a “BIG MISTAKE,” saying, “Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis. I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks looking for someone to properly represent the Great People of North Carolina.” In several posts, Trump accused Tillis of grandstanding and being “missing in action.”


...


A Victory Insights poll conducted last summer shows Tillis trailing far behind Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and a Wilmington native, in a hypothetical GOP primary. Lara Trump leads with 65% support among likely Republican voters, compared to just 11% for Tillis.

On the Democrat side, former Congressman Wiley Nickel has already thrown his hat in the ring for Tillis’ seat, but most eyes are on former Gov. Roy Cooper to potentially challenge Tillis. A Democrat with statewide name recognition and deep fundraising capabilities, polling indicates Cooper could have a slight advantage over Republican contenders in a general election matchup.

In the Victory poll, a matchup between Cooper and Tillis shows the former governor leading the senator, 45.1%-44.1%. If Cooper were to face Lara Trump, his edge is slightly larger, 45.5%-44.3%. Annie Karni at NYT:

 

Validated Voter Survey

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics

Hannah Hartig, Scott Keeter, Andrew Daniller, and Ted Van Green at Pew:

In his third run for president in 2024, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris by 1.5 percentage points overall, winning 312 Electoral College votes and the national popular vote for the first time.

Trump won with a voter coalition that was more racially and ethnically diverse than in 2020 or 2016, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of the 2024 electorate.

• Among Hispanic voters, Trump battled to near parity in 2024 (51% Harris, 48% Trump) after losing to Joe Biden 61%-36% in 2020.
• Trump won 15% of Black voters – up from 8% four years earlier.
• Trump also did better among Asian voters. While a majority of Asian voters (57%) backed Harris, 40% supported Trump. This was a narrower margin than Biden’s in 2020 (70% to 30%).

These shifts were largely the result of differences in which voters turned out in the 2020 and 2024 elections. As in the past, a relatively small share of voters switched which party’s candidate they supported.

In 2024, Trump benefited from higher turnout among those who voted for him in 2020. He also held an edge over Harris among voters who did not vote four years earlier – a group that was considerably more diverse than those who voted in both elections.

And while Trump improved his performance among several groups in 2024, many of the demographic patterns in voting preferences that have dominated American politics for the last several decades remained evident last November:

Educational divide. In each of his campaigns, Trump has held an edge among voters without four-year college degrees. But his 14-point advantage among noncollege voters (56% to 42%) was double his margin in 2016. Harris won voters with college degrees by 57% to 41%, but that was smaller than Biden’s lead among this group in 2020.

A wider urban-rural gap. Trump won voters living in rural areas by 40 points (69%-29%), which was higher than his margins in 2020 or 2016. Harris’ advantage among voters living in urban areas was nearly as large (65% voted for Harris, 33% Trump).

Continued differences by religious attendance. Nearly two-thirds of voters who attend religious services monthly or more (64%) voted for Trump, while only about a third (34%) supported Harris. Harris held a narrower advantage (56%-43%) among the larger group of voters who attend services less frequently.

Methodology: 

 For this analysis, we surveyed 8,942 U.S. citizens ages 18 and older who are members of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP). We verified their turnout in the five general elections from 2016 to 2024 using commercial voter files that collect publicly available official state turnout records.

Yogurt, Not Wine

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Adam Wren at Politico Playbook:

Democrats are licking their chops about the prospect of running against the GOP megabill in next year’s midterms.

Polling on the megabill has already sent a chill down the spine of many in-cycle Republicans. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who faces a fraught reelection bid next year, has told his Republican colleagues the megabill’s cuts to Medicaid could be the party’s Obamacare — meaning it could yield major defeats for Republicans, much as backlash to the Affordable Care Act hurt Democrats in the 2010 cycle.

“It’s a slam dunk messaging opportunity for Democrats,” Democratic strategist Mike Nellis told Playbook last night. “It’s very easy to explain how it’s going to have a direct and immediate impact on people’s lives. They’re going to cut Medicaid and other critical government programs that people rely on to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.”

On message: Future possible Democratic presidential candidates from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are railing against it, homing in on the Medicaid cuts in particular. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told Playbook that the megabill risks closing 35 rural hospitals in his home state, “forcing people to drive hours just to see their primary care doctor and is estimated to eliminate the jobs of 20,000 health care workers” in Kentucky.

Expect to hear more like this: “It will force children to go hungry in a country that grows enough food to feed all Americans,” Beshear said. “And it doesn’t even work; it adds trillions to our national debt while blowing a hole in the budgets of all 50 states. It’s wrong, cruel and callous.”

“The ads, the tweets, the press releases write themselves,” Nellis told Playbook. “Easy for everybody to get behind opposing it, regardless of the district dynamics.”

Burgess Everett at Semafor:

If Senate Republicans can close up all their outstanding issues on Trump’s megabill, expect them to vote basically immediately.

“This bill is like yogurt, not wine,” one senator told Semafor.