House Republicans’ campaign arm is urging its members to keep their foot on the gas in touting the conference’s work to cut taxes and lower costs ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) rolled out an internal polling memo Thursday arguing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act gives Republicans a crucial leg up in the cycle’s messaging battle against Democrats to maintain House control in 2026. Lawmakers, however, must seize the moment to communicate the new law’s benefits to voters — while hammering Democrats’ votes against the legislation’s tax relief provisions and GOP efforts to lower costs, according to a copy of the memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The memo urges House Republicans to center their messaging around the positive role the new law is expected to play in easing working families’ cost-of-living concerns, arguing it will be the defining issue of the midterms. The top concern animating voters across 46 battleground districts is “Inflation/Cost of Living,” according to the document.
The NRCC argues that Republicans will have plenty of material to hammer their Democratic counterparts on the issue of affordability, citing Democrats’ votes to raise taxes in July and their opposition to policies that seek to lower costs and create new jobs in their districts. President Donald Trump’s sweeping law extended his 2017 tax cuts, shielded certain Americans from taxation on tips and overtime pay and expanded the child tax credit — among other provisions.
“The table is set in the issue matrix for Republicans to seize the high ground on the cost of living after every Democrat voted to allow Americans’ taxes to go up,” the memo reads. “Our policies are designed to lower these costs and protect household budgets; Democrats opposed them.”
“Stay on offense; this is the signature debate of 2026, and winning it means holding the majority,” the memo continues.
House Republicans are racing to define the party’s signature legislative accomplishment in Trump’s second term ahead of the midterms during which the party in power tends to shed seats.
Democrats have disparaged the law for months, claiming it takes from the poor to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations. Early polling suggests Democrats’ fearmongering could be producing negative sentiment against the law.
The NRCC polling memo details how GOP lawmakers can thwart those attack lines by beating the drum on Democrats’ votes for taxes to go up on taxpayers and businesses in 2026. The average American will see a tax cut of $3,752 in 2026 due to the law’s passage, according to recent analysis from the Tax Foundation.
Voters in battleground districts respond well to GOP messaging on cost of living concerns, according to the polling memo.
Battleground voters also soured on Democratic candidates after learning the party opposed efforts to provide tax relief for working families and enact work requirements for entitlement programs. Sixty-three percent and 65% of respondents were less likely to back a Democratic candidate in 2026 after hearing they voted to cut the child tax credit and allow for a $3,000 tax hike on the average American family, respectively.
Nearly 60% of respondents were less likely to vote Democratic if the candidate opposed implementing work requirements for entitlement programs, such as Medicaid.
The poll also spells additional good news for Republicans’ chances of preserving control of the lower chamber.
Democrats hold just a three-point advantage with battleground voters on the question of which party “cares more about people like you,” marking a ten-point swing toward Republicans since 2017, according to the memo. The following year, Democrats took control of the House, flipping more than 40 seats.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the NRCC’s Democratic counterpart, dismissed the memo as “fan fiction.”
“Even Trump admitted this week that his and Republicans’ Big, Ugly Law is so toxic that it needs a rebrand as it continues to lose the support of the American public in poll after poll,” DCCC Spokesperson Justin Chermol told the DCNF in a statement. “It’s no wonder vulnerable Republicans have been hiding from their constituents after they voted to rip away health care and food assistance in order to give billionaires a tax break. No fan fiction from their D.C. Party Bosses write will fix the political reckoning they’re in for next year.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect comment from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
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