Will The Big Beautiful Bill Hurt The GOP?

It better.

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According to Elliot Morris, Americans hate the One Big Beautiful Bill, which President Trump signed into law on Friday.

The OBBBA is also historic in another way: It is likely the most unpopular budget ever, is the second most unpopular piece of key legislation since the 1990s, and the most unpopular key law, period, over the same period.

On average across pollsters and methods, 31% of Americans support the One Big Beautiful Bill, while 54% oppose it. That net rating of -23 is, to put it mildly, absolutely abysmal. That's true in both absolute terms (having a majority against you with just a third in support is terrible!) and comparative terms.

Here’s the data.

Elliott Morris

These awful poll numbers should come as no surprise. When you pass a budget that reduces taxes by $4 trillion for rich people and cuts $1 trillion in Medicaid spending, pushing close to 12 million Americans off health insurance, cuts money for food stamps, increases the cost of college, and blows a ginormous hole in the deficit, there will be political consequences.

Well, there better be.

Beware The Blue Wave

A host of congressional Republicans have put themselves in the political crosshairs by voting for this bill. Take, for example, GOP Rep. David Valadao, who represents California’s 22nd congressional district, in the San Joaquin Valley near Bakersfield. Valadao has long won by narrow margins in a district that the Cook Report rates as R+1. The 22nd also has the largest number of Medicaid recipients of any congressional district in the country, close to 68 percent. In other words, Valadao voted to take an ax to a public healthcare system that his constituents disproportionately rely on. He has no business getting reelected. He needs to lose, not because he’s a Republican but because he is not representing the interests of his constituents.

And Valadao has company. Here’s a list of 11 House Republicans with their margin of victory in the 2024 House election alongside the percentage of their constituents who rely on Medicaid.

• Dan Newhouse, Washington’s 4th Congressional District: 6% … 37%

• Nick Begich, Alaska’s At-Large Congressional District: 2% … 33.5%

• Eli Crane, Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District:

• Jeff Hurd, Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District: 5% … 30%

• Gabe Evans, Colorado’s 8th Congressional District: > 1% … 29%

• Eli Crane, Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District: 9% … 28%

• Robert Bresnahan, Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District: 1.6% … 27%

• Ken Calvert, California’s 41st Congressional District: 3.4% … 27%

• Mike Lawler, New York’s 17th Congressional District: 6% … 27%

• Juan Ciscomani, Arizona’s 6th Congressional District: 2.5% … 24%

• John James, Michigan’s 10th Congressional District: 6% … 24%

Every single one of these House members should lose in the 2024 election. That’s not a partisan argument. Rather, it reflects the fact that each of these members is ignoring the needs of their constituents to a) cut taxes for wealthy Americans and b) deliver Donald Trump a political victory. Indeed, many of these members have spent a good part of the year criticizing the Medicaid cuts in the bill. In the end, as House Republicans always do, they gave in without a fight. For their constituents to send them back to Washington after they, quite literally, voted to make their lives worse, we might have to question the idea that representative democracy is the best form of government, except for all others.

Now, I’d caveat my comments if there were a good-faith argument that the sacrifice imposed on these members’ constituents was on behalf of a worthy goal that would make America stronger, more economically powerful, and better off. But there is no such good-faith argument! The One Big Beautiful Bill will help rich people — and feed Donald Trump’s ego. Neither of these is a worthwhile national goal. In fact, they are the exact opposite of a worthwhile national goal!

But the real crux of the issue is that a thriving democracy relies on democratic accountability, namely the idea that elected officials will and should be held accountable by their constituents for their actions. If Trump and the GOP can eviscerate the social safety net, throw millions off of health insurance, literally take food out of the mouths of babies, all to give billionaires more money …. and if there’s no connection between those actions and political outcomes in congressional elections …. then American democracy is well and truly screwed.

To be clear, Republicans will almost certainly pay a price for this bill. It’s pretty rare that a political party cuts government benefits, and/or cuts taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and escapes unscathed at the ballot box. (It’s also sad but true that a political party that increases government benefits also usually gets punished at the ballot box.) I’d be shocked if 2026 and 2028 don’t bring this expected outcome. But more than dismayed, if congressional Republicans get away with this, my fleeting hopes for the vitality of American democracy will be permanently dashed.

• Steve Ratner has compiled the worst hits of the bill … and they are really bad.

The President of the United States is a F’ing Idiot … Volume 3,492,031

I’ve legitimately read letters more legible than this written in crayon.

Typos galore, run-on sentences, improper capitalization that quite literally would have killed my 5th-grade English teacher. And it’s almost completely unintelligible. Great job, America!

What’s Going On

• The flash floods in Texas — and the ever-rising death toll — are horrific. While criticism has been lodged at the Trump administration for DOGE’s cuts to the National Weather Service, it’s far from clear that the NWS screwed up. My read on the situation is that Texas officials are casting blame at the federal government to cover up their mistakes. But here’s the problem for the White House. When you unleash an impulsive billionaire on the federal bureaucracy, and he makes a host of budget cuts, without much consideration of the consequences, people are naturally going to ask if those actions played a role in the Texas floods. Every time something bad happens with the federal government over the next few years, people will ask if DOGE cuts played a role. FAFO

• Speaking of FAFO

• The Trump administration’s assault on private universities is insanely illegal.

• One of the underappreciated aspects of the Trump tax cut bill is that it will make ICE the most powerful and well-funded law enforcement agency in the country. So if you think Trump’s mass deportations have been up to now … they’re about to get a lot worse.

• The Trump administration’s politicization of the Justice Department is getting worse.

Musical Interlude