“August is when you win” is what Democrats are thinking
By Michael Jones
After wrapping up its official business on Thursday afternoon, the Senate joined the House on a roughly six-week break that won’t require them to be back in Washington until after Labor Day.
August recess is, without question, an opportunity for family getaways and quality time with loved ones. But it also offers members a chance to crisscross the campaign trail in defense of their seats or on behalf of vulnerable colleagues ahead of the general election.
“August is when you win,” Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), a co-chair of the House Democrats’ messaging arm, told me last week after casting her final vote of the summer.
One of the first orders of business for House Democrats this month is helping Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) survive a fierce primary election on Tuesday.
The Squad—a group of eight House Progressives of color, including Bush—suffered a significant setback in late June when Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) became the first Democratic incumbent of the election cycle and the first member of the Squad to lose their primary.
Bowman didn’t help himself with a series of self-inflicted wounds over the past two years. But the same outside group that poured millions of dollars into his primary challenger’s campaign has done the same for Bush’s.
Bush has said her voters will make sure her seat isn’t for sale. But recent polling shows undecided voters breaking towards Wesley Bell, a St. Louis County’s prosecuting attorney who dropped his Senate bid to take on Bush.
The two-term congresswoman is endorsed by several progressive Democrats and House Democratic leadership, including Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), the number-two House Democrat who traveled to Bush’s district to host a roundtable on reproductive health this morning.
While Bush fights for her political life, other Hill Democrats will travel their districts and the country to continue hammering former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party on Project 2025—the 900-page conservative governing blueprint for the next GOP president.
Trump has claimed to have no knowledge of the manifesto, which was crafted by several former members of his administration and advisors close to his political operation. The head of Project 2025 stepped down this week after the Trump campaign became furious at how Democrats have exploited the unpopular policy agenda and tried to distance itself from it.
But it may not matter: A recent Navigator Research survey found that Project 2025 has become significantly more unpopular the more he tries to distance himself from the plan.
Democrats tell me it’s because voters no longer give Trump the benefit of the doubt on policy and because members don’t have to craft a persuasive message against Project 2025—all they have to do is point to what’s inside of it.
“They want to control all aspects of our lives. And every single bullet point is proof of that,” Underwood told me. “We’re not trying to convince anybody of anything. We’re trying to make sure the American people know exactly what they have planned because they put it on paper, they bound it up and now they’re selling copies.”
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) unveiled a new attack line we’ll probably hear more of during recess.
First, the backstory: Almost every Senate Republican blocked a tax bill from advancing on Thursday that earned votes from the majority of House Republicans six months ago. The bill would have partially restored the expanded Child Tax Credit, provided relief to families in low-income housing and those recovering from natural disasters and incentivized small-business investments in research and development.
The Senate GOP opposition to the tax bill came on the same day that House Republican leadership reportedly said it wouldn’t allow a vote on child online safety legislation, which cleared the upper chamber in a definitive 91–3 vote.
“Both of these bills have overwhelming support from Republicans and the American people. What is going on? Why can’t Republicans get on the same page?”
The underlying message from Democrats is simple: This week’s votes show a pattern among Senate Republicans, who also blocked bills this summer to codify the right to abortion care, birth control and IVF enhance restrictions at the southern border.
“It shows the American people that the Republicans’ bellwether isn’t helping the American people,” Schumer said. “It’s helping Donald Trump and the hard right achieve an unpopular agenda.”
To be clear, there are some electoral politics at play here. Schumer is presiding over a one-seat majority that’s at risk due to a brutal Senate map with few pickup opportunities and vulnerable incumbents in two states—Jon Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio—that Trump won in 2020.
If he wants to hold the Senate, he’ll need Tester and Brown to overcome a decline in split-ticket voting, where voters choose a candidate from a party for president but one from another for a down-ballot race
He seems to think there’s value in drawing a contrast between his members, whom he says get stuff done for the American people and are willing to buck the party line, and Republicans, who only take marching orders from Trump.
“There is excitement from one end of the country to the other about the Democratic ticket. The people of those states know Tester fights from Montana, regardless of party. Brown fights for Ohio, regardless of party,” Schumer said. “And that’s why they’re doing so well in those states despite the lead that Trump has.”
What’s more is that Schumer thinks not only will Democrats keep those seats but they may add to their existing majority, which would be a historic outcome.
“You know, when we had this break two years ago, you all said to me, ‘Oh, you’re gonna lose four or five seats, look at the map.’ I said, ‘We’re going to break even and maybe pick up a seat,” he said. “Folks, we’re going to break even and maybe pick up the seat or two.”
So much of the confidence I see and hear from Democrats is due to the response to Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed her.
There was serious trepidation among congressional Democrats that concerns about Biden’s age and health following his poor performance in the first presidential debate in June would cost them a chance to win back the House and keep the Senate.
With Harris at the top of the ticket, the cultural and electoral landscape has shifted and Democrats are eager to take advantage of it.
Harris will meet with finalists to be her running mate this weekend, which, depending on the selection, should generate another favorable news cycle for Democrats to capitalize on once she’s made her decision.
“She’s got a great field of candidates that she’s taking a look at—some of them in the Senate, a couple of governors—and the good news is that she knows a little bit about what that job requires because she’s literally doing it right now,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said. “So I trust the vice president’s ability to get to the right person.”
Harris and the presumptive vice presidential nominee will campaign in several swing states next week leading up to the Democratic National Convention later this month where lawmakers expect good vibes only.
“I was in Atlanta with her this past week. We could not contain the excitement,” Warnock told me. “And we just have to stay organized and focused and translate that excitement into votes.”
Michael Jones is an independent Capitol Hill correspondent and contributor for COURIER. He is the author of Once Upon a Hill, a newsletter about Congressional politics.
