President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is already the subject of campaign attack ads launched by both parties. One Republican group is targeting vulnerable House Democrats like Rep. Jared Golden of Maine with the charge of “voting against tax cuts.”A Democratic operation is going after swing-district Republicans like Rep. Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania with a million-dollar ad buy featuring a constituent who complains that Bresnahan broke his promise to her to protect Medicaid.

“Afterwards, when the votes were done, when I found out how he voted, I was very upset to hear that Congressman Bresnahan voted for the largest cut to Medicaid in history,” the constituent says.

The 2026 midterm election is well underway, and the stakes are considerable. Republicans cling to a three-seat margin in the House, and a Democratic victory would upset Trump’s legislative ambitions during his final two years in office. Both parties think they can use the Big Beautiful Bill to sway voters. Both can’t be right.

“Every Democrat (in the) House and Senate voted no,” argued Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority leader. “The American people are going to see great benefits from this bill, and they’re going to know which party was fighting for them.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland retorted that the Republican bill has “written the script” for Democratic campaign messages.

“I’m certainly going to be talking about it all of the time,” he told USA Today. “I mean, nothing could better capture the way that the Republican party just serves Donald Trump and our would-be monarchs and oligarchs.”

Polls show that Democrats start with an advantage. A mid-June Fox News poll found that 59% of registered voters opposed the bill, while 38% favored it. But those are tentative numbers; much depends on how the bill is described and defined over the next 16 months, and Republicans have strong themes to promote.

Tax cuts are always winners, and the bill extends massive reductions initially adopted during Trump’s first term. Plus, it adds some new benefits — reduced taxes on tips and overtime as well as extended credits for some seniors and parents. And the measure boosts spending for two of Trump’s most popular policies: enhanced border security and national defense.

Shrewdly, the bill postpones many of its unpopular budget cuts until after the midterm elections, and its most damaging long-term effect — a $4 trillion increase in the national debt — remains an intangible abstraction that seldom impacts voters directly. Moreover, Trump dominates the political conversation, a master at both television and digital platforms, while Democrats remain a largely listless and leaderless opposition.

Still, Democrats benefit from some structural advantages, starting with the fact that the opposition almost always gains House seats in midterm balloting. Even a Ronald Reagan-led Republican Party lost 26 lawmakers in 1982, and Trump’s GOP suffered an even greater defeat in 2022, a net loss of 41 seats.

A magnetic presidential candidate like Reagan or Trump energizes marginal voters who don’t bother to show up two years later, and The Wall Street Journal reported on an internal Republican analysis that highlights this problem: In 19 House swing districts, GOP candidates won 24% of “low propensity voters” in 2022. Two years later, Trump won 59% of those marginal voters, and they were vital to his victory. But many are unlikely to participate next year when he’s not on the ballot.

In addition, no president is able to keep all of his promises, so a certain amount of disenchantment is inevitable. As the Democratic ads in Pennsylvania emphasize, Trump and his allies vowed — explicitly and often — to protect Medicaid funding, and they failed to do so. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who opposed the bill, accused Trump of betrayal.

Another Republican, Josh Hawley of Missouri, called the bill “politically suicidal,” but then voted for it anyway.

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.