Having closely watched congressional developments over the last few weeks, I’ve concluded that one much-discussed Democratic tactic for dealing with Trump 2.0 is probably mistaken, as I explained at New York:

No one is going to rank Mike Johnson among the great arm-twisting Speakers of the House, like Henry Clay, Tom Reed, Sam Rayburn, or even Nancy Pelosi. Indeed, he still resembles Winston Churchill’s description of Clement Atlee as “a modest man with much to be modest about.”

But nonetheless, in the space of two weeks, Johnson has managed to get two huge and highly controversial measures through the closely divided House: a budget resolution that sets the stage for enactment of Donald Trump’s entire legislative agenda in one bill, then an appropriations bill keeping the federal government operating until the end of September while preserving the highly contested power of Trump and his agents to cut and spend wherever they like.

Despite all the talk of divisions between the hard-core fiscal extremists of the House Freedom Caucus and swing-district “moderate” Republicans, Johnson lost just one member — the anti-spending fanatic and lone wolf Thomas Massie of Kentucky — from the ranks of House Republicans on both votes. As a result, he needed not even a whiff of compromise with House Democrats (only one of them, the very Trump-friendly Jared Golden of Maine, voted for one of the measures, the appropriations bill).

Now there are a host of factors that made this impressive achievement possible. The budget-resolution vote was, as Johnson kept pointing out to recalcitrant House Republicans, a blueprint for massive domestic-spending cuts, not the cuts themselves. Its language was general and vague enough to give Republicans plausible deniability. And even more deviously, the appropriations measure was made brief and unspecific in order to give Elon Musk and Russ Vought the maximum leeway to whack spending and personnel to levels far below what the bill provided (J.D. Vance told House Republicans right before the vote that the administration reserved the right to ignore the spending the bill mandated entirely, which pleased the government-hating HFC folk immensely). And most important, on both bills Johnson was able to rely on personal lobbying from key members of the administration, most notably the president himself, who had made it clear any congressional Republican who rebelled might soon be looking down the barrel of a Musk-financed MAGA primary opponent. Without question, much of the credit Johnson is due for pulling off these votes should go to his White House boss, whose wish is his command.

But the lesson Democrats should take from these events is that they cannot just lie in the weeds and expect the congressional GOP to self-destruct owing to its many divisions and rivalries. In a controversial New York Times op-ed last month, Democratic strategist James Carville argued Democrats should “play dead” in order to keep a spotlight on Republican responsibility for the chaos in Washington, D.C., which might soon extend to Congress:

“Let the Republicans push for their tax cuts, their Medicaid cuts, their food stamp cuts. Give them all the rope they need. Then let dysfunction paralyze their House caucus and rupture their tiny majority. Let them reveal themselves as incapable of governing and, at the right moment, start making a coordinated, consistent argument about the need to protect Medicare, Medicaid, worker benefits and middle-class pocketbooks. Let the Republicans crumble, let the American people see it, and wait until they need us to offer our support.”

Now to be clear, Congressional GOP dysfunction could yet break out; House and Senate Republicans have struggled constantly to stay on the same page on budget strategy, the depth of domestic-spending cuts, and the extent of tax cuts. But as the two big votes in the House show, their three superpowers are (1) Trump’s death grip on them all, (2) the willingness of Musk and Vought and Trump himself to take the heat for unpopular policies, and (3) a capacity for lying shamelessly about what they are doing and what it will cost. Yes, ultimately, congressional Republicans will face voters in November 2026. But any fear of these elections is mitigated by the realization that thanks to the landscape of midterm races, probably nothing they can do will save control of the House or forfeit control of the Senate. So Republicans have a lot of incentives to follow Trump in a high-speed smash-and-grab operation that devastates the public sector, awards their billionaire friends with tax cuts, and wherever possible salts the earth to make a revival of good government as difficult as possible. Democrats have few ways to stop this nihilistic locomotive. But they may be fooling themselves if they assume it’s going off the rails without their active involvement.

The following article, “Dems’ own polling shows massive brand problem ahead of 2026” by Elena Schneider, is cross-posted from Politico:

The Democratic Party’s brand is in rough shape in the congressional battlegrounds.

Nearly two months into the second Donald Trump administration, a majority of voters in battleground House districts still believe Democrats in Congress are “more focused on helping other people than people like me,” according to an internal poll conducted by the Democratic group Navigator Research. Among independents, just 27 percent believe Democrats are focused on helping them, compared with 55 percent who said they’re focused on others.

Michael Scherer sets the stage in his article, “The Democrats’ Working-Class Problem Gets Its Close-Up” at The Atlantic: “The distant past and potential future of the Democratic Party gathered around white plastic folding tables in a drab New Jersey conference room last week. There were nine white men, three in hoodies, two in ball caps, all of them working-class Donald Trump voters who once identified with Democrats and confessed to spending much of their time worried about making enough money to get by…Asked by the focus-group moderator if they saw themselves as middle class, one of them joked, “Is there such a thing as a middle class anymore? What is that?” They spoke about the difficulty of buying a house, the burden of having kids with student loans, and the ways in which the “phony” and “corrupt” Democratic Party had embraced far-left social crusades while overseeing a jump in inflation.?…“It was for the people and everything, and now it is just lies,” one man said when asked how the Democratic Party has changed.”

In “Trump’s lies on tax cuts are another gut punch to America’s working-class,” Svante Myrick, President of People for the American Way, writes: “Trump’s numbers don’t add up. If he were getting a math grade for his speech to the joint session of Congress, he’d fail miserably… Trump is worse than a student who hasn’t done his homework. He’s a president who routinely lies to mislead the public, justify his wrongdoing and distract us from the real harm he’s doing to Americans and the lasting damage he’s doing to America… Trump made a lot of promises about a new “golden age” for America. But in reality, he and congressional Republicans are getting ready to sell out Americans and our future so he can deliver massive tax cuts to billionaires like Elon Musk… The budget bill House Republicans just approved is big, but it’s far from beautiful. Their top priority is providing $4.5 trillion in tax cuts whose benefits go overwhelmingly to the richest Americans. That will pile on even more national debt, leave us with less money to support families and communities who need it and force big cuts in Medicaid…Budget experts report that the Trump-Republican plan would give the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers an average tax cut of more than $300,000 — and that the richest 200,000 multimillionaires would get more money than 187 million families…  While the rich would get richer, lower-income households would be even worse off when you factor in cuts to Medicaid and food stamps that would be necessary to make his tax-cut boondoggle work….A majority of Americans who voted in the 2024 election voted for someone other than Trump. A third of eligible voters didn’t participate. Most Americans do not support a tax scheme that funnels most of the benefits to those who are already at the top of the economic pyramid. And the overwhelming majority of Americans want to preserve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

“In the wake of the 2024 election, pundits and politicos have had much to say about the battle for the American “working class,” with their commentary—whether from the left, the right, or the middle—invariably accompanied by the same image: guys wearing hard hats, toiling away at a construction site or on an assembly line…”Two-thirds of those without a four-year college degree—the criterion that many demographers use to define the “working class”—are employed in services (including health care, retail, and hospitality), compared with one-third in manufacturing, construction, and related industries,” Rick Watzman and Erin Contractor write in “America’s working class barely scrapes by. An outdated image of them doesn’t help” at Fortune…We know this because one of us has been researching and writing about this topic for many years. The other helped to shape labor policy in the Obama and Biden administrations… Their needs are distinct, and they remain largely unmet…We know this because one of us has been researching and writing about this topic for many years. The other helped to shape labor policy in the Obama and Biden administrations—and, perhaps more to the point, has a mom who has worked as an hourly employee at Walmart since the late 1990s. (She currently makes $17.78 an hour as a floor associate.)…”

Tyler Stone writes in “Why Is Trump Relatable? Listen To Him Talk, This Is How Working-Class People Talk” at Real Clear Politics: “On SiriusXM ‘The Megyn Kelly Show,’ Host Megyn Kelly is joined by comedian Andrew Schulz, whose latest Netflix special is “Life,” to discuss the Democrats’ failed messaging and inability to connect with the working class, why Trump’s boldness resonates with Americans of all political persuasions, Trump’s ability to talk like normal people, and more.” Stoner quotes Schulz: “I find a lot of times with the Democrats, there is this pretentiousness. There’s this, like, Ivy League educated, second or third generation kind of trust fund nepo babies that are telling people how they should live and how they should vote. And it’s like, first of all, if you’ve never had a real job, you don’t get to talk… You don’t get to tell people how they should vote… We just despise that. So what I think they have to do is get back in touch with the working class is very much make this a class issue, and you’ve got to call out those people who are giving you money, which these young billionaires and these corporations that are donating, and they won’t do it, and that’s why they’ll probably lose. But the first person in that party that calls it out, you’re going to see the Bernie effect happen again…another thing Democrats don’t understand. They don’t understand like — why this like billionaire who was given money from his dad is so relatable. Well, why don’t you listen to him talk? I’ve had conversations with like rich people. Okay, they don’t talk like that. Yeah, they are incredibly buttoned up a lot of them and concerned publicly about their image and they’re very deliberate about what they say…” The problem didn’t originate with Trump. Something of the same dynamic was in play with Bush v. Gore in 2000. Democrats flipped that script in Obama vs. Romney in 2012. Like Bush II, Trump is every inch a preppie. But he has developed an ear for worker-speak, and it has served him well. It wasn’t all that long ago that nobody thought a New York City guy would do so well in the south. Even bogus class identification trumps regional kinship in winning voters.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,  and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

It’s hard to believe Trump’s only been in office for a month and a half. He’s certainly delivering on many of his aggressive campaign promises and his general pledge to shake things up in Washington. His address to Congress on Tuesday night did not stint on retailing how far and fast he has gone in changing business as usual.

On one level, his fast start could be viewed as a smart response to the overwhelming sense among voters that the political and economic system in the country needs major changes or to be completely torn down. But is all this frenetic activity succeeding in expanding his coalition beyond those who supported him in the last election?

After all, it doesn’t follow that, even if most voters want big changes, voters will necessarily be happy with all of the big changes the Trump administration is pursuing and, importantly, with how those changes are being implemented. Voters don’t want change just for the sake of change; they want change that actually improves the system and brings it closer to their vision of how government should work. And they certainly don’t want change that might negatively impact them personally.

That helps explain why Trump’s popularity has declined from its post-inauguration high. At that point, his net approval (approval minus disapproval) was around +8, hinting at the possibility of an expanded Trump coalition. But now it is only around +1 in the RCP running average and his overall approval rating hovers close to his share of the vote in the 2024 elections.

That said, it is true that Trump’s popularity so far is running above his first term ratings; in that term his approval rating never cracked 50 percent and went into net negative territory very quickly. But that is a very low bar indeed since his early first term ratings were historically bad. Trump’s current popularity trend indicates his early bid to broaden his coalition beyond his 2024 supporters has not succeeded.

Internals from the most recent AtlasIntel poll—now Nate Silver’s highest rated pollster thanks to their stellar performance in the 2024 election—illustrate how similar Trump’s current coalition looks to his 2024 support. His net approval is +21 among working-class (non-college) respondents, but -27 among the college-educated. Among those with under $50,000 in household income his net approval is +16; among those with $50,000-$100,000 income, his net approval is +9—but among those whose household incomes are over $100,000 his approval is net negative: -18.

Of course, Trump’s 2024 coalition was a winning one so simply maintaining it is not an obvious disaster. However, Trump’s 2024 victory, while solid, was hardly a landslide—his popular vote margin was only about a point and a half and most of his swing state victory margins were close to that narrow national margin. If he doesn’t expand his 2024 coalition he and his party will be only modest voter defections away from an electoral drubbing. That could happen as soon as the 2026 midterm elections, where the incumbent party is generally at a disadvantage to begin with.

Digging into recent polling data reveals the contradictions in Trump’s approach that undermine his ability to expand his coalition. On the one hand, some of his actions are quite popular from cracking down on illegal immigration to getting biological boys and men out of girls’ and women’s sports and restricting medicalization of minors for “gender dysphoria.” He is also on secure ground in opposing affirmative action, advocating a colorblind meritocratic society and pursuing an “all-of-the-above” energy policy that includes fossil fuel production.

Even in these areas, the devil is in the details and Trump is in some danger of going too far too fast. But the dangers for him are much larger in another area where, at first blush, public opinion would appear to be on his side: cutting wasteful government spending and promoting efficiency. In a recent New York Times poll, 60 percent of the public agreed that government “is almost always wasteful and inefficient” rather than “does a better job than people give it credit for” (37 percent). Views were even more lop-sided among working-class (non-college) respondents; by 2:1 (64-32 percent) they believe that government is wasteful and inefficient.

Similarly, in a recent Harvard/Harris poll, 77 percent of voters thought a full examination of all government expenditures was needed, rather than letting all contracts and expenditures proceed unimpeded; 70 percent believed government expenditures were full of “waste, fraud and inefficiency,” rather than fair and reasonable; and 69 percent supported the goal of cutting $1 trillion from government expenditures. Such findings suggest that an aggressive attack on government waste and inefficiency has the potential to be very popular and expand Trump’s coalition.

But the key word here is “potential”. Activating that potential depends on two things the Trump administration is paying little attention to: 1) it has to be clear to voters that actual government waste and inefficiency is being attacked rather than just cutting government willy-nilly; and 2) it has to be clear to voters that cuts to government are not affecting and will not affect them negatively.

On both counts, the Trump drive to trim government, spearheaded by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is falling short. While DOGE audits have indeed found many examples of highly questionable government expenditures and related inefficiencies, DOGE has not exactly been wielding a scalpel to excise these inefficiencies. Instead, wholesale layoffs and expenditure stoppages have been implemented which, even if temporary, are difficult for voters to connect to the ostensible goal of eliminating government waste. Particularly egregious here has been the DOGE habit of firing any government employees who have a “provisional” status, presumably because this is a quick way of reducing headcount in agencies and generating savings.

But such moves have little obvious connection to promoting government efficiency. As Oren Cass, chief economist at American Compass, has put it, this is pressing the “easy button” for no other reason than it is easy. The result is likely to be neither productive nor popular.

This will be particularly the case where eliminating workers leads to staffing shortages in ways the public notices (e.g., at National Parks). And nothing makes voters more nervous than the possibility that entitlements—Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—will be interfered with by DOGE’s actions or Trump’s future plans. This is a sure loser.

Given all this, it’s not surprising that voters’ enthusiasm for DOGE, Musk and the actually-existing project of overhauling government (as opposed to the theory) is rapidly ebbing. This is neatly illustrated by Navigator Research polling showing that the “Department of Government Efficiency” without Musk’s name linked to it is actually viewed favorably but once you attach Musk’s name to it—thereby evoking the real-world DOGE—favorability plummets to 37 percent.

Consistent with this, Musk’s favorability rating has been rapidly declining and in a recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll, his approval rating on the job he is doing within the federal government was a mere 34 percent. And in a recent CNN/SSRS poll, respondents by almost 2:1 thought Trump giving Musk a prominent role in his administration was a bad thing rather than a good thing. Views among working-class respondents were only slightly less negative.

Unsurprisingly, views are mixed on reductions in the federal workforce so far, both in terms of overall approval and specific effects. In a new CBS News poll, majorities thought that the reductions will eventually “remove workers doing unnecessary jobs” but also thought they will “remove essential workers” and “reduce or cut services for people like you.” This suggests thoroughly cross-pressured voters rather than enthusiastic supporters.

Also suggesting cross-pressured voters, respondents in the CNN poll by 55 to 45 percent thought Trump so far hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems rather than has had the right priorities. Clearly, the high profile efforts of DOGE aren’t helping the Trump administration get on the right side of that question which is probably a prerequisite for building his coalition.

Then there’s the economy, particularly the cost of living, which was central to Trump’s victory in 2024. Voters want to see improvements on this front, regardless of what else Trump does. It’s early days but so far voters are not impressed.

In the Washington Post poll, 76 percent of respondents rate current gas or energy prices negatively (not so good or poor), 73 percent rate the incomes of average Americans negatively and 92 percent (!) rate food prices negatively. In the CNN poll, only 27 percent think Trump has been about right on trying to reduce the price of everyday goods, compared to 62 percent who believe he hasn’t gone far enough. And in the CBS poll, 82 percent and 80 percent, respectively, wanted Trump to put a high priority on the economy and inflation but only 36 percent and 29 percent, respectively, believed Trump was prioritizing these issues a lot.

There’s a message there for the Trump administration should they care to hear it. His mandate was to shake up the system by pursuing popular priorities Democrats were ignoring, especially on illegal immigration, and deliver prosperity for ordinary workers and families. His mandate was not to do whatever excites his base the most or accords with his personal priorities.

In short, Trump may be over-interpreting his mandate, just as Biden did when he took office in 2021, which will prevent him from seizing the center from a disorganized and remarkably unpopular Democratic Party. Instead of a second Trump administration realigning American politics and building a more powerful working-class, populist GOP, the Democrats could limp back into power and our current partisan stalemate would continue.

Call it “Politics Without Winners.” In our paper of the same name my AEI colleague Yuval Levin and myself observed:

Surveying the parties’ decisions in one election cycle after another, it is hard to avoid concluding that they are stuck at 50–50 because they choose to be. Both have prioritized the wishes of their most intensely devoted voters—who would never vote for the other party—over the priorities of winnable voters who could go either way. They have done this even as the nature of their most devoted voters has changed. They have not operated as institutions geared to construct broad coalitions and win broad general-election victories. Instead, they have focused on fan service—satisfying their most partisan and loyal constituencies.

It’s early days for the second Trump administration but that still sounds about right.

This article , “California’s Gavin Newsom opposes trans athletes in women’s sports, splitting with progressives” by Bill Barrow, is cross-posted below from apnews.com. For Gov. Newsom, a former Mayor of San Francisco, who is frequently short-listed as a potential presidential candidate, this policy position represents a significant departure from public expectations and may herald a trend among Democratic politicians. The article:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, used the inaugural episode of his new podcast to break from progressives by speaking out against allowing transgender women and girls to compete in female sports.

Newsom made his declaration in an extended conversation with conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old who built the influential Turning Point USA organization that helped President Donald Trump increase his support last fall among the youngest generation of voters. Kirk, like Trump, has been a vocal opponent of allowing transgender women and girls to participate.

“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom told Kirk on “This is Gavin Newsom.”

“I am not wrestling with the fairness issue,” continued Newsom, who played varsity baseball as a college student. “I totally agree with you. … I revere sports. So, the issue of fairness is completely legit.”

The governor’s comments are the latest in Democrats’ efforts to reconcile a 2024 election that returned Trump to the White House and gave Republicans control of both chambers of Congress. Among the disagreements since November is how much cultural issues – as opposed to economic policy and other matters – explain the party’s losses.

Overall, polling suggests that allowing transgender female athletes to play on women’s teams isn’t broadly popular. Even most Democrats — around 7 in 10 — oppose allowing transgender female athletes to participate in women’s sports, according to a January New York Times/Ipsos poll. A 2023 Gallup poll also found that Democrats were divided on whether transgender people should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity.Newsom, who has long positioned himself as a social progressive, drew sharp rebukes from LGBTQ+ advocates.

“Sometimes Gavin Newsom goes for the Profile in Courage, sometimes not,” said California Assemblyman Chris Ward and state Sen. Carolina Menjivar, who lead the state’s LGBTQ+ legislative caucus. “We woke up profoundly sickened and frustrated by these remarks.”

Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, said he was “disappointed and angered” by Newsom’s statements and that they “added to the heartbreak and fear” the transgender community feels under the Trump administration.

“Right now, transgender youth, their families, their doctors, and their teachers are facing unprecedented attacks from extremist politicians who want to eviscerate their civil rights and erase them from public life,” Hoang said. “They need leaders who will unequivocally fight for them.”

California law, enacted before Newsom became governor, requires schools in the state to allow transgender athletes to play on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Republican state lawmakers introduced bills in the Legislature this year to ban that practice, but they would be difficult to pass in the Democrat-dominated statehouse. The governor’s office declined to comment on the proposals, saying Newsom doesn’t typically weigh in on pending legislation.

Beyond questions about athletics, there is less public support for broader restrictions on transgender rights and issues like medical care for transgender people, particularly among Democrats.

According to AP VoteCast, 55% of voters in the 2024 election said support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, while about 2 in 10 said it’s been about right and a similar share said it hasn’t gone far enough. Voters were also slightly more likely to oppose than favor laws that ban gender-affirming medical treatment, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors who identify as transgender.

But Republicans have nonetheless sought to capitalize on the cultural touchstone that sports represent in America.

Trump regularly hammered Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Newsom’s fellow Californian, for supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Trump promised at his rallies to get “transgender insanity the hell out of our schools” and “keep men out of women’s sports.” His campaign also spent tens of millions of dollars on television and digital ads with the searing summation: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

“Boy, did I see how you guys were able to weaponize it,” Newsom told Kirk, before yielding to Kirk’s protest and saying instead that the ads were an effective “highlight” during the campaign.

Since taking office, T rump has threatened to withhold federal money from schools that allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s’ or girls’ events. He declared victory on the issue recently when the NCAA, which governs collegiate athletics in the U.S., changed its policy to restrict women’s sporting events to those athletes who were assigned the female gender at birth. Previously, the NCAA had a sport-by-sport policy determined by the respective sports’ national or international governing bodies.

Ward and Menjivar, the California lawmakers, said playing on a team consistent with one’s gender hasn’t been a problem “until Donald Trump began obsessing about it.”

Kirk, not Newsom, brought up the overall issue during their hour-plus conversation, which focused in part on how Democrats can rebuild a broader coalition of voters. Kirk pressed Newsom on whether he would speak out in opposition to transgender women athletes in competition.

The governor attempted to mitigate his comments, saying the discussion is about more than competitive advantage.

“There’s also a humility and a grace that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression, and the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with, as well,” Newsom said. “So, both things I can hold in my hand. How can we address this issue with the kind of decency that I think is inherent in you but not always expressed on the issue and at the same time deal with the unfairness.”

Still, Newsom’s approach marks a different political tack than he took on same-sex marriage more than two decades ago. As San Francisco mayor in 2004, Newsom drew national attention for the first time by directing the city clerk to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

The move prompted legal action that led to a 2008 ruling from the California Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage in the nation’s largest state. That decision came seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court established same-sex marriage as a national right.

As an inveterate poll-watcher, I have been waiting for the moment when Donald Trump’s job approval numbers went underwater, his accustomed position for nearly all of his presidential career. It arrived around the time he made his speech to Congress, as I noted at New York:

Even as he was delivering the most partisan address to Congress maybe ever, Donald Trump’s public support seemed to be regularly eroding. An updated FiveThirtyEight average of Trump’s approval ratings on March 4 (released just as news broke that ABC was shutting down the revered data site) showed him going underwater for the first time since reoccupying the White House, with 47.6 percent approval and 47.9 percent disapproval. That puts Trump back in the same territory of public opinion he occupied during his first term as president, where (per Gallup) he never achieved more than 50 percent job approval, and averaged a mere 41 percent.

Perhaps Trump will get lucky and conditions in the country will improve enough to validate his agenda, but it’s more likely that the same sour public climate that overwhelmed Joe Biden will now afflict his predecessor and successor.

The Reuters/Ipsos survey that pushed Trump’s numbers into negative territory showed a mood very different from the 47th president’s boasts about a new “golden age” for our country:

“Thirty-four percent of Americans say that the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 49% who say it is off on the wrong track. When it comes to several specific issues, Americans are more likely to say things are off on the wrong track than going in the right direction: cost of living (22% right direction / 60% wrong track), the national economy (31% right direction / 51% wrong track), national politics (33% right direction / 50% wrong track), American foreign policy (33% right direction / 49% wrong track), and employment and jobs (33% right direction / 47% wrong track).”

So all the hype about Trump being a popular president who was in the midst of engineering a major realignment of the American electorate is already looking more than a bit hollow. Trump has a solid Republican base of support and a solid Democratic opposition, with independents currently leaning towards the Democratic Party on most issues. Perhaps Trump’s agenda will gain momentum and support, but since he’s not trying to reach out beyond his party’s base at all, he’s going to need a lift from Americans who only voted for him in 2024 as the lesser of evils and may not vote in the 2026 midterms at all.

At present Trump has lost whatever presidential “honeymoon” he initially enjoyed after his return to the White House, and needs to find new converts to return to genuine popularity. He’s not off to a great start.

This coalition of rural, progressive and Democratic organizations from across the United States is urging Ken Martin, the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, to substantially shift more of the Party’s time, attention and funding into rural and working-class communities. Regretfully, our earlier post of this petition campaign omitted the link for those who want to sign it. They should click here. Also, here is the link for making contributions and signing up for the coalition mailing list. 

To: Ken Martin, Chair, Democratic National Committee, and fellow DNC officers

As you know, Democrats spent over $4 billion on advertisements in the 2024 campaign cycle, outspending Republicans on the presidential race as well as both Senate and House races. Meanwhile, rural and factory town Democratic committees and candidates were starved for funds, as they have been for many years. Allocating a small percentage of those funds annually to long-term organizing and outreach in these communities would, we are confident, do far more
to broaden our base of voters and win elections.

The signatories to this letter fight for rural and working-class people. Most of us hail from or reside in small towns and rural communities. Whether through local organizing and party building, developing concrete tools for policy and communications, or careful analysis of what
works and what does not, our collective experience can help Democrats change course and
rebuild our base.

We extend this invitation to you to work together in prioritizing and fixing the Democratic Party’s profound deficits with rural and working-class voters. We have an opportunity, right now, to change course and begin to win back millions of people now alienated from our party, including demoralized rank-and-file voters, donors and activists. Anything less than a major course correction will, we fear, lead to the loss of even more voters, including the women,
minorities, youth, and working-class men who once comprised the party’s base.

In the attached addendum to this letter, we highlight what we believe to be the most important causes of our losing trend and propose seven promising steps most likely to reverse our decline in rural America. The DNC has profound influence and moral authority within the Democratic coalition. If the leadership of the DNC would passionately and forcefully call upon the complex network of large and small contributors and Democratic fundraising organizations to explicitly direct just 10% of their resources to rural and working-class districts and candidates, it could produce deeply significant and enduring long-term gains for the Democratic Party as a whole. If Democrats had done this in 2024, we’d now have $400 million in organizing infrastructure to help mobilize and rebuild our base before the midterms.

We offer our partnership to you, committing our experience, tools and resources and on-the-ground networks to this essential mission and work. Thank you.

Signatories below:

Elected Officials and Candidates

Rep. Ro Khanna – Congressman, California’s 17th District

Sam Rasoul – Delegate, Virginia House

Ken Tole – Former State Senator in Montana

Antoinette Sedillo Lopez – New Mexico State Senator, District 16

Javier Martinez – Speaker of the NM House of Representatives

Andrea Romero – NM House of Representatives

Patricia Roybal Caballero- New Mexico House of Representatives

Dayan Hochman-Vigil- New Mexico House of Representatives

Charles Maughan – Mayor, City of Corvallis, OR

Mauree Curry – Councilwoman in Easton, MD

Christopher Wier – OK HD 4 Candidate, 2024

Tegan Malone – OK HD 95 Candidate, 2024

Ellen T Wright- Candidate for GA state senate SD29

State Parties, State and Congressional District Caucuses

Indiana Democratic Party – Mike Schmuhl Chair

Washington State Democratic Party – Shasti Conrad, Chair

Maine Democratic Party – Imke Schessler-Jandreau, Vice Chair, BJ McCollister

Tennessee Democratic Party – Carol V. Abney, Treasurer and Executive Committeewoman

Virginia Democratic Party 9th Congressional District – Rebecca Daly, Chair

Minnesota Democratic Party 7th Congressional District- Jennifer Cronin, Chair

Iowa 4th Congressional District- C.J. Petersen, Chair

Missouri Democratic Party Rural Caucus – Jacqueline Farr

Maryland Democratic Party Rural Caucus – Judy Wixted

Georgia Democratic Party Rural Council – Leonard Fatica

California Democratic Party Rural Caucus – Katie Jaycox

Virginia Democratic Party Central Committee – Joan Kark

Oregon Democratic Party Education Caucus- Liz Marlia-Stein, Communication Secretary

New Mexico Democratic Party Labor Caucus – Sara Attleson, Chair

Arizona Democratic Party State committee – Aaron J Essif

Washington State Progressive Caucus – Sharon Abreu

California Democratic Party – Rocky Fernandez, Regional Director

New Mexico Democratic Party Veterans and Military Families Caucus – Claudia Risner, Chair

Minnesota Democratic Party 9th Senate District – Jane Stock, ChairTulsa Young Democrats – David Wilson, Chair

Maine DNC Committeeperson – BJ McCollister

Democrats Abroad – Sue Alksnis

Eastern Shore, Maryland Democrats- Judy Wixted, Chair

Democratic County Committees

Cecil County, MD, John Dixon

Allegany County, MD, Cresta Kowalski

Druid Hills Community, DeKalb County, GA, Michael St. Louis

Marshall/Wicomico County, MD, Demetria Marshall-Leonard

Garrett County, MD, Judy A. Carbone

Port Townsend Precinct, Jefferson County, WA, John Collins

Tuolumne County, CA, Elaine Hagen

Washington County, NY, Jay V. Bellanca

Eau Claire County, WI, Gloria Hochstein

Cherokee County, NC, Diane Snyder

Coos County, OR, Garrett Kin

Conesus Town, Livingston County, NY, Maureen McCarron

Russell County Democratic Committee, VA – Dustin Keith

Scott County, VA, Patricia Kilgore, Chair

Pottawatomie County, OK – Kerri Keck, Ben Parker, and Sandy Ingram

Montgomery County, VA, Gretchen Distler and Deborah Olsen

Hart County, GA, Margaret O’Neal

White County, GA, Leigh Stephens

Oglethorpe County, GA, Jane Kidd

Lac qui Parle County, MN

City of Radford, VA, Vicki Tolbert

Columbia County, GA, Ron Battista

Benton County, MO, Jacqueline Farr

Talbot County, MD, Naomi Hyman, Rudy Reyes and Kaye Dutrow

Caroline County, MD, Jessica Taylor

Dorchester County, MD, Sydney Bradner-Jacobs

Kent County, MD, Muriel Cole

Morgan County, TN, Joel Derek Hawn

Bernalillo County, NM, Marisol Enriquez

Yamhill County, OR, Bill Bordeaux

Cambria County, PA, John Soyka

Denton County, TX, Anjana ParasharCumberland County, ME, Heidi J Vierthaler

Benton County, OR, Holly Shutta

Staten Island, NY, Elaine A. Friedland

Santa Clara, CA, Margaret Okuzumi

Linn County, OR, Susan Heath

Boone County, IA

Union County, OR, Randy L Knop

Riverside County, CA, Judy Rice

Mansfield Town, Bristol County, MA, Tyler Putnam

Palm Beach County, FL, Jill Sheridan

Trinity, Pasco County, FL, Ronald E Simpson

Wine Country Young Democrats (Sonoma County), CA

Adelante Progressive Caucus, NM, Colton Dean

Tioga County, PA

Grayson County, VA, Terry Dunlevy

Kent County, MD, Paula Reeder

Democratic Women’s Club of Greenbrier, WV, Carol F Evans

Phelps County, MO, Robert Cesario

Tuscarawas County, OH, Mike DiDonato

National Organizations

Progressive Democrats of America- Alan Minsky (Executive Director), Donna Smith (Chair of

National Advisory Board), Mike Fox (Deputy Executive Director)

American Family Voices- Mike Lux, Founder, Director

Rural Urban Bridge Initiative- Anthony Flaccavento, Executive Director

Community Works- Meredith Dean, Director

No Dem Left Behind- Hassan Martini, Executive Director and James Bartosh, Digital Director

Movement Labs/Contest Every Race- Yoni Landau, CEO

State Democratic Party Progressive Network- Sandra J. Klassen, Steering Committee

Dirt Road Democrats

RootsAction- Sam Rosenthal, Political director

Young Men Research Project and Democratic Messaging Project (DMP)- Lisa Liddle

State and Local Organizations

State and regional chapters of Progressive Democrats of America in

● Arizona

● Maryland

● Iowa

● Oregon● Nebraska

● New Mexico

● Florida

Blue Missouri

Rise Up WV

Network NOVA

Giles Political Action

Our Revolution Northern Virginia

New Rural Virginia

Tuolumne County Indivisible

Blue Horizon Texas

Center for Common Ground

Ohio Poor People’s Campaign

NJ Universal Healthcare Coalition

Indivisible VT

Open Democracy NH

California Nurses Association

Healthy Aging Coalition

Indivisible Northwest Indiana

El Dorado Progressives

Fighting 50 PAC

Speak Out Against Hate

Major Democratic Donors

Roger Milliken

Bernard Cossell

Donna Sylvester

Margaret Gupta

Edward Rice

Sally Ketcham

Shashi Gupta

Rural/Working Class Organizers, Advocates, and Analysts

Jim Hightower- Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner and lifelong activist

Andrew Levison- Editor, the Democratic Strategist

Arlie Hochschild- Writer, author of Stolen Pride

Beth Ruck- New York state rural and urban advocateJustin H. Vassallo- Writer/researcher, political economy and American political development

Jared Abbott- Director, Center for Working Class Politics

Bill Hogseth- Rural organizer, Wisconsin

Sage Lawrence- Rural organizer and former Campaign Manager for US Rep. Val Hoyle

Jared Jodts- Former Organizing Director, Wisco Project

John Russell- Founder, editor at The Holler

Georgia de la Garza- Illinois/Jackson-Union Editorial board of People’s Tribune/

Beth Macy – Writer and author of Factory Man

Local Democratic/Progressive Activists
As of this date, over additional 500 people from all walks of life have signed this letter or a petition with the same essential requests.

At The Nation, read “Resistance Is Not Enough. The Left Must Address the Grievances of the Working Class” by Anthony Flaccavento, author of Building a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up: Harnessing Real-World Experience for Transformative Change and cofounder of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative.: “The deluge of antidemocratic, generally inhumane actions taken by the Trump/Musk presidency are fulfilling our worst fears. So what should we do in response?…For most left-leaning activists, the answer is resistance. Resistance to Trump’s cabinet nominees; resistance to his mass deportations; resistance to Elon Musk’s ongoing evisceration of critical federal agencies. Team Trump’s destructive plans and actions cry out for resistance—in the streets, the courts, and anywhere else we might have impact. One example of the resistance platform is Indivisible’s “Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink.” The essence of their strategy is encapsulated in one short sentence: “For the next two years, ‘no’ is a complete sentence.” This is “a time for defense,” they advise, rather than “proposing our own policies.”…the left’s almost singular focus on defense—without offering an equally compelling vision that addresses the grievances of rural communities and working-class people—is a grave mistake. If we don’t make our commitment to an economy and politics that serves everyday people loud and clear, we will undermine efforts to fight Trump and further solidify the estrangement of the working class. Our outrage and resistance must encompass the ongoing betrayal of farmers, unions, and workers and US manufacturers and small businesses…As New York Times reporters summarized their conversations with Black and Latino voters who went for Trump in 2024, “Democrats’ dire warnings about threats to democracy felt far less compelling compared with the urgency of their own struggles to pay the rent.” Pushed by some of the most prominent consultants and pundits on the left, that was an unforced error that may have cost Kamala Harris the election. We cannot afford to make that mistake again…the Trump/Musk onslaught of anti-worker, anti-farmer, pro-corporate actions are an opportunity to offer a plan of our own to unrig the system most Americans hate…We can begin by lifting up some of the Democrats who won in Trump-leaning districts, emphasizing their pro-worker or pro-farmer positions and pledges to confront corporate power. From Chris Deluzio in western Pennsylvania to Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in rural Washington, to Pat Ryan in New York’s Hudson Valley, the Democratic tent includes people who know that fighting for the little guy against Wall Street’s housing grab or for farmers’ rights over John Deere’s profits is both the right policy and a winning politics…As Representative Khanna put it in a recent New York Times op-ed, “The alternative to Mr. Trump cannot be a defense of institutions as they are. We need to stand for national renewal driven not by nostalgia for some golden past or simplistic anti-system slogans, but by offering transformative solutions to deliver future prosperity for all Americans, rekindling our bonds as citizens and healing our divides in the process.”

Galen Druke of 538/ABC News conducted a discussion with Washington Post data scientist Lenny Bronner and New York Times polling editor Ruth Igielnik on the topic, “Democrats Aren’t Popular. What Should They Do about it?” It went like this:

Former Rep. Tim Ryan has an article worth reading at MSNBC.com, “The right way for Democrats to communicate about Trump,” subtitled “If Democrats want to reach working class voters, they must acknowledge, empathize and recapture the narrative from Donald Trump.” As Ryan observes, “When I reflect on November’s election, two glaring omissions are missing from the Democratic Party’s messaging: acknowledgment and empathy. The lesson Democrats should take away from Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump is the importance of meeting people where they are emotionally. If Democrats don’t do that, their message isn’t going to stick…Democrats should have acknowledged the tough spot a lot of Americans were in. They should have shown voters they’re empathetic. But we also can’t just look in the past and talk about what the Democratic Party should have done. Democrats in Congress have a real opportunity to right that ship and show voters what the party really stands for… There’s an analog element to this, members should be holding town hall meetings as often as they can. They need to get on the local news. It’s time to start building the case for the American people. But that doesn’t mean Democrats should run around with hair on fire over every issue…Don’t take the bait on everything coming out of this White House. Sometimes the smartest strategy is just to play possum. As Democratic strategist James Carville recently suggested in a guest essay for the New York Times, maybe the most daring political maneuver Democrats could implement right now is to “roll over and play dead.”

How would you rate Democrats response to Trump’s speech Tuesday night? It was a tough call, and they ended up playing it safe, maybe a bit too safe. Democratic Rep. Al Green (TX-9 ) was removed from the SOTU for standing up and protesting Medicaid cuts early on during Trump’s speech. There were a few other Democratic walk-outs, but most Democratic members just sat there and grumbled, sometimes loud enough to be heard. It was the “We must maintain decorum and civility” strategy, with some Democratic members waving little signs with protest messages that looked more like those personal fans people used to use when it got hot in D.C., back before air conditioning. That may have been the right strategy. People forget all about the last SOTU within a few days after it is delivered. Why risk anything, when no one cares that much, so shortly after the event? Then there is the strategic priciple, “When your adversary is making himself look bad, get out of the way.” When your political opponent is delivering a speech that history books will characterize as drenched with bile, pique and resentment, why turn a two-day story into a week of coverage that could backfire? But, what if all the Democrats walked out on cue, right after a personal insult directed their way?  We’ll never know if that would have been a better strategy. But it seems like a question worth considering before the next SOTU. There is something to be said for a dignified walk-out, when confronted with personal insults. Nothing wrong with modeling civility, while those across the aisle howl like demented cheerleaders, and their leader finishes his sour speech to a half-empty hall. That’s not such a bad look for Democrats either.

Former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown has a must-read article at The New Republic entitled “Democrats Must Become the Workers’ Party Again: Reconnecting the Democratic Party to the working class is an electoral and a moral imperative, and it will be my mission for the rest of my life.” Some excerpts: “Democrats must become the workers’ party again. It is an electoral and a moral imperative, and it will be my mission for the rest of my life. To win the White House and governing majorities again, Democrats must reckon with how far our party has strayed from our New Deal roots, in terms of both our philosophy toward the economy, and the makeup of our coalition….We cannot solve this problem without an honest assessment of who we are. How we see ourselves as the Democratic Party—the party of the people, the party of the working class and the middle class—no longer matches up with what most voters think….Joe Biden was inarguably the most pro-labor president of my lifetime. He talked about the dignity of work. He ushered in a new era of industrial policy, making dramatic investments to create jobs and move production of crucial technologies home to the United States. He hired economists for top jobs who prioritized worker power in the labor market. He had the most pro-worker U.S. trade representative likely ever. He presided over rising wages and low unemployment. He walked a picket line….But he was horribly unpopular. Americans repeatedly told us that they hated the economy, thought the country was on the wrong track, and feltworse off than ever….So what happened?….The march away from the Democratic Party among working-class voters—now including nonwhite workers—began long before inflation hit. And the road back is going to require more than just waiting for Trump to fail and voters’ memories of inflation to fade….The more that’s been written, the less we seem to have learned. It’s not that complicated. We have an economy today that does not reward work and does not value the work of Americans without four-year college degrees.”

Brown continues, “Over the past 40 years, corporate profits have soared, executive salaries have exploded, and productivity keeps going up. Yet wages are largely flat, and the cost of living keeps getting more expensive….Productivity and wages used to rise together. That changed in the late 1970s. Since then, workers produce more and more, but they enjoy a smaller and smaller share of the wealth they create….And when work isn’t valued, people don’t see a path to economic stability, no matter how hard they work. A couple of years of modestly rising wages are not going to make up for decades of Americans working harder than ever with less and less to show for it….Most people in Ohio believe the system is rigged against them. They’re right. Today, income and wealth inequality rival the Gilded Age. Using one of the most classic definitions of the American dream—that children will be better off than their parents, moving up the economic ladder with each generation—we are going backward. More than 92 percent of children born in 1940 earned more than their parents did. For children born in 1984, it’s only 50 percent….These changes hit working-class kids particularly hard. Children born to parents without college degrees are less likely to get a four-year degree, setting them back in nearly all aspects of life….College graduates have four times the net worth and four times the retirement savings of Americans without degrees. Americans with a bachelor’s degree live eight years longer than those without a bachelor’s degree….In the 1960s, about one in four members of Congress only had a high school degree. Today 96 percent of members are college graduates….If Democrats continue to be seen by voters in places like Ohio as the defenders of a system that rewards a minority of coastal elites at the rest of the country’s expense, we will continue to lose ground among the very people we claim to represent….Today in the Mahoning Valley, I still hear about NAFTA. One member of my Senate staff who grew up in the valley told me last year that, to this day, Clinton is not to be spoken of in his family’s steelworker household, so deep runs the sense of betrayal….People in Youngstown and Dayton and my hometown of Mans­field expected Republicans to sell them out to multinational corporations.

Brown notes, further, “But we were supposed to be the party that looked out for these workers—to be on their side, to stand up to corporate interests….young staffers in the Clinton administration became the seasoned experts in the Obama administration, attempting to ram through the Trans-Pacific Partnership and confidently pushing a vision of an ever-more-interconnected global order. To people in Ohio, that sounded like a recipe for more of the same: more shuttered storefronts, more kids moving away, and more good-paying careers replaced by dead-end jobs at big box stores that have few benefits and opportunities for upward mobility….Most people don’t wantwhat they view as government handouts. Nor do they want to be left to fend for themselves in an unfair market, rigged by multinational corporations, that only benefits the people at the very top….They want a level playing field so their hard work can actually pay off. And they want a government that will actually fight to create that level playing field, which means taking on corporate interests….But instead, the message they’ve heard from party elites, over and over, has been: We know better than you do. Voters sense it. They hate it. And until we fix it, working-class voters will continue to abandon us….Most families at all income levels feel squeezed by soaring housing costs, unaffordable childcare, rising insurance prices, stubbornly expensive health care—not to mention trying to save for retirement, higher education for their kids, and care for aging parents. Life feels unaffordable even for workers whose incomes put them well ahead of their working-class neighbors….And most people get their income from a paycheck, not an investment portfolio. Work unites all of us….We’re all trying to do something productive for our family and our community and our country. We want to develop skills and take pride in them, and we want our work to be valued, and for our paychecks to be enough to provide for our families….That should be our party’s North Star, the foundation on which we build….None of this will be a project measured in months, or in one or two election cycles. We need a generational effort to transform our party, with the dignity of work at the center.”

In “The Democrats’ Working-Class Problem Gets Its Close-Up: A group that spent heavily to defeat Trump is now devoting millions to study voters who were once aligned with the Democratic Party but have since strayed,” Michael Scherer writes at The Atlantic: “The distant past and potential future of the Democratic Party gathered around white plastic folding tables in a drab New Jersey conference room last week. There were nine white men, three in hoodies, two in ball caps, all of them working-class Donald Trump voters who once identified with Democrats and confessed to spending much of their time worried about making enough money to get by….Asked by the focus-group moderator if they saw themselves as middle class, one of them joked, “Is there such a thing as a middle class anymore? What is that?” They spoke about the difficulty of buying a house, the burden of having kids with student loans, and the ways in which the “phony” and “corrupt” Democratic Party had embraced far-left social crusades while overseeing a jump in inflation.” Read more here (paywall).

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,  and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Take a look at this graphic from the recent New York Times/Ipsos poll. Quick quiz: what is the intersection of the two sets “most important issues for themselves personally” and “most important issues for the Democratic Party”?

That right: it’s health care! There’s no other overlap between the two sets. Health care is the #2 issue for the public and at least makes the leaderboard—at #5—on what respondents think is most important to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, on other hand, is viewed as sharing three of the public’s top five priorities—the economy, immigration, and taxes—but not health care.

You may see where I’m going with this. High salience issues on which Democrats have a clear advantage are thin on the ground these days—but health care definitely qualifies and has stood out as a robust Democratic advantage for quite some time. Consider these data.

Democrats are consistently the party voters trust more to handle health care. Typically their lead over the Republicans on the issue has been in the double digits.

That trust extends to various health care issues. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) polling in 2024 found that respondents trusted Biden over Trump by a 12-point margin on determining the ACA’s future, by a 12-point margin on protecting people with preexisting medical conditions, by an 11-point margin on ensuring access to affordable health insurance, and by an 8-point margin on determining Medicare’s future.

After a famously rocky and unpopular start, Obama’s ACA has steadily gained favor. The split of favorable versus unfavorable views on the Democratic-identified health care reform bill is 64 percent to 36 percent in 2025 KFF polling.

On the broad question of the government’s responsibilities for health care, sentiment has shifted back to a strongly pro-government position after dipping during Obama’s second term. According to Gallup, 62 percent of voters now say the government is responsible for ensuring all people have health care coverage, compared with 36 percent who disagree. This sentiment obviously favors the Democrats.

Health care is important to American voters. In a 2023 AEI/NORC survey, 88 percent of voters thought health care affordability is a very or moderately big problem in the country today. That represents the largest consensus on any issue tested in the survey, except inflation. And the sentiment was uniform across most demographics, including the white and non-white working class.

In a 2024 Liberal Patriot/Blueprint/YouGov survey that tested support or opposition to a wide variety of proposals associated with the Democratic or Republican Party, the top-performing proposals—which performed remarkably well—were almost all health care related. In order of net support (support minus opposition), the health care proposals were:

• Increase the number of prescription drugs that Medicare can negotiate the price of for seniors. (Net support was 75 points.)
• Require pharmaceutical companies to charge American consumers the lowest price they charge consumers in foreign countries. (Net support was 75 points.)
• Cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it. (Net support was 74 points.)
• Protect Medicare and Social Security from funding cuts or increases in the age of eligibility. (Net support was 72 points.)
• Permanently extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections for those with pre-existing conditions. (Net support was 59 points.)
• Cap prescription drug costs at $2,000 per year for all Americans. (Net support was 51 points.)

Support for these policies is strong across demographics but tends to be stronger among working-class voters, particularly white working-class voters. Democrats’ opportunity to cut into the GOP’s coalition through this issue is clear. Remember that in the 2018 elections, when the Democrats performed so well, health care issues were absolutely central to congressional campaigns.

But Democrats face challenges on this front too. One is that elevating health care comes with an opportunity cost that Democrats, with their fervent commitments to “saving democracy,” abortion rights, and climate change, may not be willing to pay. More attention to health care means less attention to these other causes. The Democrats’ educated, liberal base and infrastructure may resist that—even if a net enlargement of their coalition would result.

Consider the Inflation Reduction Act, which included significant health care–related spending on insurance subsidies and instituted Medicare price bargaining and other cost-control measures for some prescription drugs. The act was publicized and understood as involving climate change, renewable energy, and electric vehicles, which completely overshadowed its health care provisions. To this day, the overwhelming majority of voters are not even aware of these provisions, according to KFF polling.

Given all this, surely Republicans would not be so foolish as to hand the Democrats a new opportunity to leverage their big advantage in this area. Or would they? The budget passed on a party line vote in the the House and shortly to be taken up by the Senate implies the need for drastic spending cuts to balance big tax cuts included in the budget. Medicaid is in the cross-hairs for these spending cuts, perhaps to the tune of almost a trillion dollars.

This is a genuinely terrible idea! And it is potentially far more serious than the furor around DOGE/Musk, which is already costing Trump and the GOP some good will. Rachael Bade of Politico reports:

Two…vulnerable GOP lawmakers I spoke to over the weekend were ready to brush off the anti-Musk backlash.

“I’m all in on DOGE,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) told me Sunday night, arguing that cutting the federal workforce is “wildly popular” with Republicans in his swingy district and “weirdly a non-factor” for everyone else except hardcore Democrats. Another vulnerable member from a drastically different kind of district in another part of the country, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, dismissed last week’s protests as “pearl-clutching” by the media and Democrats.

For both, however, Medicaid is a different story.

“That’s where the battle’s coming,” said Gonzales. “There’s no doubt that there’s waste, fraud and abuse in every program in the government, including Medicaid — but at what point do you stop cutting into the fat and start cutting into the bone? You can’t pull the rug out from millions of people.”

Gonzales, who has a large constituency enrolled in the program, already co-authored a letter with seven other House Republicans representing large Hispanic populations asking Johnson to rethink where the GOP is headed on Medicaid.

This makes sense. Medicaid is an enormous program, whose enrollment has been expanded far beyond the truly indigent by the ACA. According to KFF, two-thirds of American adults have a personal (self, family, close friends) connection to Medicaid through receiving health care coverage, receiving support for pregnancy/home health/nursing home care, or assistance with Medicare premiums.

Small wonder that Medicaid is hugely popular with the public, with 77 percent having a favorable view of the program, including 85 percent of Hispanics, 82 percent of those with under $90,000 in household income, and even 63 percent of Republicans. Just 19 percent think we are currently spending too much on Medicaid and 81 percent are opposed to cutting the program (including 74 percent of Republicans).

Even the shambolic Democrats, who can’t figure out a way to dissociate themselves from the unpopular policies that are dragging them down, might not blow this one! As former Democratic operative Evan Barker notes in a piece on Lee Fang’s Substack, the attack ads practically write themselves:

I predict this is precisely what they will look like: Elon Musk is on stage at CPAC, waving a chainsaw in slow motion, with doom music in the background; cut to a frame with Donald Trump promising no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, and a final quick transition to a man speaking directly to the camera: “I lost my job, and when I tried to apply for Medicaid, I was turned down. Two weeks later, I got brain cancer. Now I’m homeless because I had to sell my house to pay for chemo.” It sounds dramatic—but the drama is how Dems roll. These ads will be blasted in key swing states in 2028, with the numbers of those who lost healthcare coverage since 2024 tallied on the screens.

Ouch. Of course Trump many times has said he has no interest in making cuts to Medicaid. His cagey political instincts and his “brand” as a working class-oriented populist Republican would appear to lead him against such a move. Judging from the debate in Congress and the views of many in his party, he has his work cut out for him. If he doesn’t succeed, health care really could turn out to be the Achilles heel of his second administration.