President Donald Trump and Republicans are having problems selling the president’s signature legislative accomplishment, the One Big Beautiful Bill, before next year’s midterm elections.

Their problems come after former President Joe Biden and Democrats similarly experienced difficulties selling Biden’s cornerstone pieces of legislation, from the American Rescue Plan Act to the Inflation Reduction Act, before the 2022 midterm elections and last year’s presidential election.

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For one, polling is against the One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump’s tax and spending legislation that funds everything from his border to energy policies, more than six weeks after the president signed it into law on Independence Day.

Polling published last week by the Pew Research Center found 46% of respondents disapproved of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, while 32% approved. Another 23%, however, told pollsters they were unsure about it.

Republicans hope to improve public opinion of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, or at least shape the perceptions of those who tell pollsters they are unsure about the legislation, during their August recess in-district work period. But that plan has been upended, in part, by several constituent town halls being interrupted by protesters.

Republican pollster Whit Ayres described polling as being “pretty consistent” against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, at least “so far.”

“It’s primarily because of the content of the bill,” Ayres told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a lot more difficult to sell a tax bill that keeps taxes the same as they are as opposed to a bill that actually cuts taxes because people don’t feel any difference.” 

Ayres, president of North Star Opinion Research, contended Republicans could argue the negative, that taxes would have increased if not for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, “but that’s a much more difficult argument to make.”

Ayers acknowledged, too, the political challenges regarding the One Big Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid reforms because “there’s also millions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, and millions of Trump voters are on Medicaid.” 

“They’ve structured it very cleverly so that the cuts don’t take effect until after the midterms, but the fact is that the Republican coalition has changed so much over the last 10 years that there are a great many Trump voters on the lower end of the economic scale who are relying on Medicaid,” he said. “You can argue that all they did was cut Medicaid to the people who should be working but are not, but the statistics seem to show that a lot of current Medicaid recipients are already working and they just don’t make enough to pay for their health insurance.”

Other Republican strategists criticized negative interpretations of the polling, repeating that the One Big Beautiful Bill represented the priorities Trump won on during last year’s election.

“The bill is still largely undefined,” one Republican strategist told the Washington Examiner. 

That strategist, who conceded it is “tough to sell any big bill,” countered Ayer’s contention about the One Big Beautiful Bill’s tax provisions, asserting “it’s just easy to say, ‘Hey, if we did not extend or make the Trump tax cuts permanent, then your taxes would have gone up by X amount of percent.’”

“The only aspect in the bill that’s a little somewhat troubling for us is the Medicaid provisions,” the source said. “Obviously, the Democrats see Medicaid as their silver bullet issue going into the midterms, but I do think we can level the playing field on Medicaid because the specific provisions of what we’re actually doing to the program are wildly popular. Cutting illegal immigrants, establishing work requirements, cutting waste around abuse, all those things have 70-80% approval ratings.” 

He added: “If we could talk about the specific provisions when we’re talking about the issue of Medicaid, we may not be able to win on it, but we can at least pick apart and defang the attacks from Democrats and level the playing field.”

To that end, Democrats appear to have an advantage before next year’s elections. The party has an average three percentage point edge over Republicans in generic congressional ballot polling, 46% Democrats-42% Republicans, according to RealClearPolitics. 

In other aggregate polling, Trump’s approval is net negative 5 points, with 46% approve-51% disapprove, while 40% of respondents consider the country to be on the right track compared to 54% who tell pollsters it is headed in the wrong direction.

Simultaneously, however, Trump’s favorability rating is net negative 8 points, 44% favorable-52% unfavorable, in contrast to Democrats’ at net negative 25 points, 34% favorable-59% unfavorable.

Pointing to that polling, a White House official reiterated how the One Big Beautiful Bill is Trump delivering on his campaign promises and insisting there is “something” in the legislation “for everyone.”

“There have been Republican lawmakers on the Hill who have been out all August recess in their states talking about how great the bill is, talking about the specific components of the bill that are most relatable to the people in their districts and back home for them, and have published hundreds of op eds and done lots of media interviews,” the official told the Washington Examiner. “We’re going to continue successfully pushing why the bill is great for Americans.”

The National Republican Campaign Committee, the House GOP campaign organization, did encourage its lawmakers to use their recess “to continue to define how this legislation will help every voter and push back on Democrat fearmongering,” including saving families almost $3,000 a year by making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent, increasing the Child Tax Credit to $2,200, and decreasing taxes on tips and overtime, in addition for small businesses and rural families.

“The best defense is a good offense,” the NRCC wrote in a memo. “If you have an aggressive game plan of events and messaging, focus your energy on executing that plan to perfection. Seek to drown out Democrats’ efforts to knock you off message with a disciplined and compelling communications effort of your own.”

Even Vice President J.D. Vance was in Peachtree City, Georgia, on Thursday to sell Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill after taking similar trips to Pennsylvania and Ohio last month.

“President Trump and his entire administration are working tirelessly for the safety and security of working families,” Vance wrote on social media. “We’re doing it by cutting taxes, securing the border, and promoting good-paying jobs all over America, especially right here in Georgia.”

Meanwhile, Democrats have tried to capitalize on the One Big Beautiful Bill’s unpopularity. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Democrats’ campaign arm, predicted in a competing memo that it would be “THE defining issue of the midterms.”

“There’s been a never-ending avalanche of polls showing that the more people hear about the Big, Ugly Law, the more they hate it,” DCCC spokesman Viet Shelton told the Washington Examiner. “It’s unsellable, and it will be the defining issue of the midterms, ultimately costing House Republicans the majority.”

Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin agreed, saying Republicans’ job selling Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill has been complicated by the president “wreaking havoc” every day.

“Even if they could find a good message, no one’s going to hear it because the landscape is shifting every couple hours,” Hankin, president and co-founder at Trendency Research, told the Washington Examiner. “When it comes to selling a big piece of legislation, you really need that to be somewhat uniform. You need people to hear it. It needs to be talked about for a while and in different ways, so that it starts sinking in. And there’s zero ability to do any of that.”

As Democrats did under Biden, Republicans will have to grapple with how Americans have become increasingly distrustful of major policy reforms as well, according to Claremont McKenna College political professor John Pitney. Pitney cited how the public “didn’t trust [former President Barack] Obama‘s Affordable Care Act, but they also didn’t trust Trump’s efforts to repeal it.”

“In the case of OBBB, they have good reasons to be skeptical,” Pitney, a former Republican aide, told the Washington Examiner, abbreviating Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. “The Congressional Budget Office has found that the richest Americans will benefit the most, while the poorest will lose ground. People with disabilities have justified fears that the bill will lead to cuts in Home and Community-Based Services, on which so many depend.”