Congressional Republicans are likely relieved. Passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act required President Trump to manhandle dozens of GOP lawmakers. The House leadership twisted arms on an epic scale to get a bill done—twice. Even then, Vice President JD Vance had to break a tie in the Senate.
It is extraordinary that congressional Republicans and the White House ran this gigantic piece of legislation with so many moving parts through the House, squeaked through the Senate, then got the House to accept the upper chamber’s changes and pass it again—all before the president’s July 4 deadline.
That was the easy part. Now, Republicans must sell the new law to a deeply skeptical public. The GOP will be tempted to ignore Democratic attacks and focus on other issues. That isn’t an option. Like it or not, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will be the central issue in the midterm election.
A battery of polls confirms the public is largely down on the legislation. Across six June polls—from Fox, the Kaiser Family Fund, Pew, the Washington Post and Ipsos, Quinnipiac, and YouGov and the Economist—only 23% to 38% of respondents had a favorable view of the act. The proportion with an unfavorable view reached as high as 64%. The Post-Ipsos survey had the lowest percentage opposed, at 42%, but it also had the lowest support, at 23%.
And yet it isn’t all bad news for the Republicans. These surveys also show important elements of the new law are popular. In the Kaiser poll, 68% of respondents support a work requirement for Medicaid. In the Post-Ipsos poll, 52% support a work requirement for able and childless adults, with only 33% opposed. In the Pew survey, 42% support extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts that expire this year and only 25% oppose it. In the Post-Ipsos poll, 49% support extending the tax cuts while 26% are opposed. A GOP poll in key districts conducted by White House pollsters found that 61% of voters support making the 2017 tax cuts permanent to “save the average American taxpayer up to $2,800 per year,” 72% back a Medicaid work requirement, and 68% are for requiring states to “better screen enrollees” for Medicaid “to immediately end coverage of people who are ineligible.”
All this indicates the fight over the act’s reputation will come down to messaging—Republicans struggling to get the popular specifics of the bill front and center while Democrats scream about the possible consequences. To win this critical communications contest, the GOP must undertake four tasks.
First, launch a coordinated effort to tell Americans what’s right about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Mr. Trump has America’s biggest megaphone. No self-congratulations. This messaging should be a systematic, sustained explanation of what was done and why. How things are described matters a lot.
Second, go on offense. As Democrats attack the law by saying millions will lose Medicaid coverage, Republicans should lambast Democrats for making taxpayers fund free health care for able-bodied adults who refuse to work. While expressing support for legal immigration, Republicans should castigate Democrats for supporting free health care for illegal aliens. And Republicans should say Joe Biden was wrong to prohibit states from checking their Medicaid rolls as often as they liked to find people our laws already say are ineligible for Medicaid.
