With 2026 midterms top of mind, budget vote takes center stage

Mary Ellen McIntire and Daniela Altimari, CQ-Roll Call on May 22, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Now that House Republicans have passed their “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill, both parties are poised to make Thursday’s early morning vote a central point of their midterm messaging.

Democrats asserted that the GOP budget hurts working Americans and helps billionaires, declaring that the vote would help deliver them control of the House next year. Republicans, by contrast, argued voters will reject Democrats who voted against more money for border security and extending the 2017 tax cuts.

“House Democrats just signed their own political death warrant,” Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.

“Now that vulnerable Republicans are on the record voting for it, this betrayal of the American people will cost them their jobs in the midterms and Republicans the House Majority come 2026,” Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, countered in a statement.

In Pennsylvania’s 7th District, Carol Obando-Derstine, one of the Democrats challenging freshman GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, said Mackenzie’s vote was a “cruel betrayal” of working families.

“While Mackenzie helps billionaires like Elon Musk and leaves our district behind, I’ve spent my career fighting for the families hit hardest by these cuts,” she said.

But Mackenzie said the bill included “commonsense solutions that people across the Greater Lehigh Valley are counting on.”

“This budget delivers real relief for seniors and working families, secures our border, and reins in reckless spending,” he said in a statement.

Cait Conley, one of the Democrats hoping to win the nomination to challenge GOP Rep. Mike Lawler in New York’s 17th District, argued that Lawler “put national Republicans and the billionaires who back him over working families in our community.”

“That’s the story of his time in Congress: he goes on cable news and pitches himself as a new and different type of Republican, but when push comes to shove, he does everything his national Republican bosses want him to,” she said in a statement.

Lawler touted the bill’s provisions raising the cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT. Speaking on CNBC Thursday, he said that it and other tax provisions were “vital to really kick-start our economy and give folks certainty in the marketplace.”

“This is a big increase, especially for New York, for districts like mine where I represent three counties that are in the top 16 highest property taxed counties in America,” he said. “This is providing tax relief to the middle class.”

In a swing district north of Denver, the GOP budget proposal was campaign fodder long before Thursday’s vote.

One in four people in Colorado’s 8th District rely on Medicaid, and Democrats have been attacking Republican Rep. Gabe Evans on the issue for weeks, holding protests at his district offices

“I was on food stamps as a kid,’’ Manny Rutinel, one of at least three Democrats vying to unseat Evans, said on social media. “What Trump and Gabe Evans are doing isn’t policy, it’s cruelty. Millions could lose health care and food access if their plan goes through.”

Left-leaning political action committees including the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and EMILY’s List also blasted the GOP. “We see you, voters see you, and we will replace you in 2026,’’ EMILY’s List President Jessica Mackler said in a statement.

On the right, David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, said the party-line vote will be used to paint Democrats as opponents of tax relief.

“Every House Democrat is now on the record taking the extreme and radical position of voting for the largest tax increase in American history,” he said in a statement.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee criticized Democratic Reps. Haley Stevens of Michigan, Angie Craig of Minnesota, and Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, who are all running for Senate, for opposing the bill.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer told reporters Thursday afternoon that he hoped Senate Republicans wouldn’t pass legislation similar to what the House passed.

“The fact that the Republican Party stands for slashing Medicaid and slashing SNAP … all to give tax breaks for the billionaires, helps us,” he said on a media call organized by the left-leaning Families Over Billionaires. “This House bill has put a stamp on who the Republican Party is and their policies are highly unpopular with the American people.”