Why the GOP's "One, Big, Beautiful" Bill May Come Back to Bite Them

Big bills are hard to sell.

GOP lawmakers have wrestled for months on how to best pitch the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), their wide-ranging tax and spending legislation that extends Trump’s 2017 income tax cuts, introduces new populist tax proposals that Trump campaigned on such as no tax on tips or overtime, and cuts spending. But convincing voters about the merits of the OBBBA is proving to be an uphill climb: polling in the aftermath of passage showed that roughly six in ten Americans opposed the bill and opinions have not improved since then.

Even President Trump has admitted that the bill needs a rebrand.

In a late August cabinet meeting, he conceded, “That [name] was good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s all about. It’s a massive tax cut for the middle class.”

Perhaps Trump expected that many of the new, populist tax cuts would be catchy and easy to pitch. Voters will associate them with Trump, who actively campaigned on “no tax on tips,” “no tax on overtime,” “no tax on Social Security,” and “no tax on car loan interest”—all included in some capacity in the legislation. Yet each is limited by eligibility and income requirements, which will dampen their reach.

History tells us a name change may not be enough to campaign on the passage of the bill in the 2026 midterms for two reasons: the GOP’s vulnerability on healthcare and moderate retirements resulting from the passage of the bill.

The current government shutdown over an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies reflects the Democrats’ desire to highlight the GOP’s healthcare exposure heading into the election year. Medicaid cuts in the OBBBA, plus the failure to extend the subsidies, they say, are evidence of a broader Trump administration and Republican desire to cut government spending even if it hurts popular programs that voters rely on.

The healthcare issue will ripen in the approaching midterm elections, which are increasingly nationalized referenda on the sitting president. Even popular presidents typically face losses in congressional seats. But President Trump is not widely popular, and GOP retirements in vulnerable swing districts and states—several related to the OBBBA’s passage—could harm the party’s ability to maintain their narrow congressional majorities.

In the meantime, the Trump administration is hedging its bets. The GOP House majority may well hinge on Trump’s pressure campaign on GOP-led state legislatures to redistrict away as many swing districts as is politically and legally possible.

Was it a tax bill or a healthcare bill?

The greatest political liability of the OBBBA is that it extends far beyond tax cuts. For example, to pay for the tax cuts, the OBBBA shrinks the social safety net, cutting more than $1 trillion in federal government spending on Medicaid, other healthcare programs, and food stamps (SNAP).

The Trump administration is aware of how these cuts might hurt them with voters. To minimize it, Trump and congressional leaders have defended the Medicaid cuts as merely addressing waste, fraud, and abuse. More importantly from an electoral perspective, Medicaid cuts will not take effect until after the 2026 midterms.

Yet, there is recent historical precedent for an unpopular healthcare vote harming the GOP’s re-election chances: the 2018 GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In the midterms that followed Republicans’ failed attempt to repeal the ACA (or “Obamacare”), 41 percent of voters ranked healthcare as their most important issue. Three-quarters of those who said healthcare was the most important issue facing the country voted for Democratic congressional candidates in their districts.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has warned privately that the deep Medicaid cuts contained in the final OBBBA could cause him to lose the House majority. The 2018 midterms, in which swing district Democrats successfully attacked Republicans over their willingness to vote against healthcare coverage for people with preexisting conditions, provide a template for campaign attacks. Democrats are using the current government shutdown as a test run.

Exodus of the moderates

It is possible that by the November 2026 midterms, a tax cut bill that passed in July 2025 could feel like old news. The news flow could be dominated by Trump’s frequent executive-led policy changes, and to focus on taxes and spending cuts in one bill may feel out of touch next year.

If the bill falls flat as a potent direct campaign attack for the Democrats, the most consequential part of the bill then could be the retirements that resulted from its passage.

To pass the tax cuts with tiny congressional majorities before Trump’s July 4 deadline, the White House and congressional leadership used a combination of threats and cajoling of its own side. Threats of primary challenges or retaliation from a uniquely powerful executive branch made it difficult for lawmakers across the political spectrum to oppose the package.

Not all lawmakers got in line.

Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), the incumbent who was set to defend North Carolina’s highly competitive Senate seat in the 2026 midterms, retired after a confrontation with Trump over the Medicaid cuts in the bill.

The North Carolina Senate seat was and remains arguably the best pickup opportunity for Democrats, and incumbency historically helps parties keep seats. Tillis likened the Medicaid cuts to President Barack Obama’s once-unpopular Affordable Care Act and refused to vote for the bill. His public disavowal of the cuts was met with backlash from Trump, who wrote on Truth Social that he had spoken with “numerous people” about primarying Tillis. Tillis announced his retirement a day later. The OBBBA almost certainly contributed to his decision, which leaves a Republican-held, swing-state Senate seat more vulnerable than it already was.

In the House, moderate Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), one of three Republicans who represent districts where Kamala Harris won in 2024, also announced his retirement on June 30, just one day after Tillis and two days before final passage of the OBBBA. While Bacon did not explicitly blame the bill, he, too, criticized the deep Medicaid cuts in the Senate version.

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and moderate Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) were the only House GOP lawmakers to vote against the bill. Fitzpatrick, who voted “no” but is far less openly critical than Massie, has so far escaped a primary challenge. Trump’s refusal thus far to endorse a primary challenger to Fitzpatrick may reflect an increased awareness of the tight Republican majorities’ midterm vulnerabilities.

Massie—a notorious and singular thorn in Trump’s side during his second term—has not been as lucky, though he currently sits in a safe red seat.

Republicans’ saving grace—redistricting?

Given the scant attention that Trump has devoted to selling the OBBBA relative to other policy priorities such as tariffs and immigration, and the heavy focus on gerrymandering safe Republican districts, the Trump administration’s goal is to ensure none of these vulnerabilities matter and that swing voters are an afterthought as they mobilize their own voters to protect the majorities.

The Trump administration successfully urged the Texas state legislature to pass a redistricting plan that could net the GOP five additional seats. Similar efforts that could net Republicans additional seats are underway in North Carolina, Missouri, Kansas, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida. The Cook Political Report estimates that despite Democrats’ attempts to counter with redistricting efforts of their own so far (e.g., California’s Proposition 50 campaign), Republicans are likely to gain in the high single digits of House seats through redistricting initiatives alone.

In an era of midterm elections in which the pool of competitive seats has shrunk to around two or three dozen, and large swings toward one party or another are virtually unheard of, such an advantage could prove decisive without a highly effective Democratic mobilization effort and message.

Politics in the Trump era has upended many past assumptions about the ability of public policy to determine elections. But, if things are to shift toward the opposition next year, the OBBBA’s healthcare vulnerability and the retirement of congressional Republicans because of it will certainly play a critical role in Democrats mobilizing independents and other voters in whatever competitive congressional seats remain.

Ava Kelley is the U.S. Director at Greenmantle, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm.