Republicans are worried that touting this year’s tax cut bill and tying Democrats to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., won’t be enough to hold the House and Senate in the November midterms.
While GOP lawmakers maintain that both are important campaign issue, some believe the party is leaning too heavily on them, particularly in light of some predictions that they are about to lose upwards of 45 House seats. Rep. Conor Lamb’s, D-Pa., likely victory over Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania last Tuesday also showed both arguments can be neutralized.
“I think the bigger challenge for members is defining themselves,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. “Members must develop their own brand for their district, if they haven’t already, and then go out and sell it. Tax reform might be part of that brand, but boy, you better have a brand this year. If your brand is just generic Republican, that’s going to be a problem.”
“I’d have to say today we’re at great risk [of losing the House]. I still say it’s a 50/50 proposition right now, but it can get worse,” Dent said. “The national political environment is toxic for us right now. You’ve got to figure out how to deal with it.”
Republican groups were forced to spend heavily on behalf of Saccone after he failed to raise campaign cash, but were on the losing end and saw pro-tax and anti-Pelosi arguments fail to move the needle. The GOP abandoned its tax reform messages in the final weeks of the race despite insisting since the law’s passage that it would help carry members to re-election.
Nonetheless, top groups, fronted by the Congressional Leadership Fund, or CLF, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, or NRCC, plan to keep the two messages front-and-center in the coming months, led by ongoing push to sell the tax law.
“Republicans have to run and win on tax reform,” said Corry Bliss, head of the CLF, a PAC that is supported by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. “Tax reform is an offensive, not a defensive, issue.”
After seeing support swell to near 50 percent in February, support for the law has leveled off. According to a recent Monmouth poll, 41 percent support the law. More troubling, though, only 23 percent believe their own taxes will fall. Republicans now believe that while the tax push should be a part of the message, they it can’t be viewed as the savior for their majorities.
“If we think we can run on that alone, we’ll be mistaken,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, who chaired the NRCC during the 2012 cycle.
Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., a top Senate recruit against Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said that while the law polls well in his state, it is only one of a series of issues that he plans to pitch to voters.
“I don’t know that it’s any bigger than several others,” Cramer said, rattling off Obamacare repeal and the rollback of regulations as two other top issues. “Tax reform is something I’ll talk about a lot, but I don’t know that it will be the main topic. It’s probably one of 5-10 [issues] we’ll talk about a lot.”
Republicans are also likely to tweak their messaging against Pelosi after the Pennsylvania debacle. After Republicans used their tried-and-true method of tying a Democrat to their longtime leader, Lamb put out an ad disavowing his support for Pelosi, making it tougher for Republicans to label him a rubber stamp and opening the door for more Democrats in swing and Republican-leaning districts to do the same.
“It can’t be the only strategy,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., a former NRCC chairman, about hitting Pelosi. “You also have to have something positive to go tell voters you’re for and have done and will do going forward.”
By and large, the Pelosi argument is likely to vary by congressional district. But to some, the strategy doesn’t hold the same strength that it did in 2010 when the NRCC pushed their “Fire Pelosi” campaign and in the ensuing campaign cycles.
“I don’t think it will be as effective as it has been in previous cycles … It clearly didn’t work out in southwestern Pennsylvania,” Dent said. He added, however, that Republicans may not have any other choice than to push the message that helped them win the House in 2010.
“Is there any other option right now?” he asked.
