There was the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. The money for immigration enforcement. Tens of billions for national security. That’s to say nothing of smaller provisions that received less coverage at the time, from its newborn savings accounts to its permanent child tax credits.

HOW THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL BECAME LAW: READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER’S 10-PART SERIES

All formed the basis of what would become a midterm election blitz to sell its benefits to voters. Settling on a name that encapsulated it all was the bigger challenge.

The tagline that emerged, the Working Families Tax Cuts, was the product of early conversations between the White House and congressional leadership, a brainstorm that left on the cutting room floor several backups that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) had poll-tested in April 2025, months before it became law on July 4.

In polling shared with the Washington Examiner, Republicans weighed alternate names that all leaned into its tax savings. There was the More Money for Americans Act, the Less Taxes, More Pay Act, and the Bigger Paychecks Act.

A couple were more aspirational or riffed on Trump’s MAGA slogan. Republicans considered the Restoring the American Dream Act and the Make America Prosperous Again Act.

Topping the list, however, was the Working Families Tax Cut, a name that placed “no tax on tips” and other Trump campaign promises as the crown jewel of the messaging campaign.

“We chose that name not just because it tested well, but also because it best represented what Republicans wanted to accomplish with this bill,” said Cotton, who leads communications as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.

“After years of Democrat tax hikes and inflation, we wanted to deliver relief for working families around this country, to make their lives more affordable,” he added. “And the Working Families Tax Cut has lived up to its name.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act title “kind of cheeky,” but pointed out that Trump “really wanted that.” He echoed Cotton in saying the new name “explains a significant portion of what the bill’s about,” while the original moniker “does not.”

Shifting political environment

A lot has changed since Republicans first passed the tax law a year ago. The United States is now mired in a war with Iran that has sent gas prices skyrocketing and put upward pressure on inflation.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans are far less united than they once were, in large part because of Trump’s preoccupation with the SAVE America Act, a voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bill. The election integrity measure and the Senate’s inability to pass it have been at the center of repeated legislative crises that threaten to butt right up against the November election.

Even the 2026 elections themselves have become contentious among Republicans after Trump-endorsed GOP candidates defeated Sens. Cassidy and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in their respective primaries earlier this year. Those moves sparked friction among Senate Republicans who backed their incumbent colleagues.

For those reasons, some Republicans openly question whether the GOP tax law will help them at all come November, when they are trying to defy the political headwinds that ordinarily face the party in power.

The GOP rushed to get the tax cuts in place by July 4 last year so that voters could feel the impact in their tax returns before the midterm elections.

“In a lot of ways, I don’t think we got a political benefit because there’s been a lot of other distractions,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said in an interview.

Adding to the infighting are the repeated skirmishes with Democrats in Congress. Soon after Trump celebrated the enactment of the big, beautiful bill, a bipartisan push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files intensified. The issue consumed the White House for months as Trump tried to kill the Epstein legislation and then reluctantly ended up signing it into law.

Last fall, Congress deadlocked on funding the government, and that stalemate led to the longest shutdown in history.

The response from Republicans has been to stand firm on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, making it the centerpiece of their economic message this election cycle. The cost of living still remains a top concern of voters, and Democrats are intent on hammering them over Trump’s tariffs and now the war.

The point most often touted by Republicans is that the bill’s passage prevented the “largest tax increase in American history.” Leadership-aligned groups continue to run ads highlighting its deductions for seniors, parents, and other critical voting blocs.

Quick out the gate

From the very start of their push to renew Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, Republicans knew it would be a challenge breaking through to voters. Polling showed the bill was unpopular in the lead-up to passage, just as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had been in the president’s first term.

Part of the problem was addressed through the Working Families Tax Cuts rebrand, directed at overcoming the fact that Republicans had a sweeping bill on their hands — exactly the kind of legislation that voters typically regard with suspicion.

“Trust us, everything is good and beautiful,” is how one staffer framed the difficulty of messaging such a large measure.

The other half of the equation for Republicans was finding the elements of the bill that polled best individually and then packaging those in a way that addressed voters’ anxieties about the economy.

One Nation, an advocacy group aligned with Thune, tapped Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio early on to survey four top battleground states with that goal in mind.

The poll, shared with One Nation in a memo dated July 1, 2025, found that Republicans could shift public sentiment on the bill if it was framed in a way that addressed voters’ “most pressing economic needs.”

Relief from the cost of child care was an especially persuasive message, making voters 66% more likely to support the legislation.

Those findings were then used for an initial ad blitz to sell the tax law. In total, One Nation spent $18 million on commercials across July and August. House-aligned GOP groups followed a similar approach, with American Action Network in particular investing eight figures in dozens of competitive districts.

“Once we settled on Working Families Tax Cuts, we took it and ran with it,” said Alex Latcham, the executive director of One Nation.

On Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans encouraged members to treat the August recess like a “summer sales event” and tout its benefits when meeting constituents in their home states.

The rush was informed, in part, by polling that one senior GOP aide called a “blinking red light” for Republicans. Days after the law passed in July, CBS News found that 40% of voters thought the big, beautiful bill was a tax hike rather than a tax cut.

There was also a recognition that if Republicans did not sell the bill, Democrats would do it for them — and their portrayal would not be as charitable.

By that time, Democrats had settled on highlighting Medicaid reforms in the law that had intensely divided Republicans. The drumbeat from its critics was that Republicans were taking away benefits from the poor to line the pockets of the rich.

“So much of the bill was undefined to people that it was a race to get out there and reach them before the Democrats did,” said the senior GOP aide.

Republicans found in polling that Medicaid wasn’t such a liability, so long as they emphasized the changes were work requirements for “able-bodied adults.” Voters were also sympathetic to efforts that combated “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the program.

Still, Republicans understood the herculean task before them in selling the bill to voters. Not even a decade ago, they passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and found it landed on the campaign trail with a thud.

Senate Republicans had a favorable map and netted seats in 2018. In the House, the outcome was an electoral wipeout that handed Democrats 40 seats and the speaker’s gavel.

Avoiding past mistakes

In retrospect, Republicans fault some of that outcome on how late in 2017 they passed Trump’s first tax bill.

They made the political miscalculation of starting with a repeal of Obamacare when Trump took office, and spent precious months struggling, only to eventually fail to find consensus in the Senate. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed later that year, shortly before Christmas, but not soon enough for voters to feel the impact before the 2018 midterm elections.

This time, Republicans were focused on giving the Treasury Department enough time to prepare for the 2025 filing season and rallied around a firm deadline of Independence Day to pass the bill.

“Really, I think a lot of Republicans were scarred by that,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said of the 2017 delays. “I know it was front of mind for the president because that didn’t really give the tax bill the opportunity to kick in and push the economy the way the Working Families Tax Cut has.”

From a messaging standpoint, Republicans were operating on the belief that they had not done enough back then to keep their “foot on the gas” to change public sentiment. By the fall, they were in the throes of their first government shutdown fight with Democrats, but began strategizing how to bring attention back to the tax law once that stalemate ended in November.

Senate Republicans’ communications center began consolidating every major provision into a one-page sheet that staffers affectionately referred to as their “Chinese menu.”

Those provisions were then synthesized into glossy pamphlets that categorized the bill according to three main pillars: “Safe Streets. More Money in Your Pocket. New Opportunities to Get Ahead.” Both were shared with their conference for use at well over 100 events in their home states this year.

Among the steps taken by House Republicans was a big blitz on the airwaves associated with Tax Day.

Playing defense

There was always a question of how much the public relations push would translate electorally for Republicans. The bill was largely an extension of the tax cuts voters were already enjoying under the 2017 law. Much like their crackdown at the border, Republicans felt as though they were taking an issue off the table with their renewal, rather than giving the public a new reason to vote for them.

To the most at-risk Republicans, its Medicaid reforms were complicating what was already going to be a challenging election cycle.

Last June, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) announced his retirement in a fit of frustration after Trump publicly excoriated him for opposing the tax law, but he told the Washington Examiner he was already leaning against running for another term in 2026 over what he called a “business transaction” that was “not good.”

“I had to be willing to commit to a year and a half of being bludgeoned, have [$300 million] to $400 million spent against me to impugn my integrity, and if I’m going to go into that, I’m only going to go into it because I’m convinced I’m going to win,” he said.

The expiration of premium Obamacare subsidies six months later only furthered Democratic plans to make the election a referendum on healthcare. That messaging has since taken a back seat in favor of criticizing the administration for the war in Iran.

Republicans attempted to get ahead of the liability that came with the Medicaid changes by adding a $50 billion fund for rural hospitals into the tax law and have since advertised that fund heavily on the airwaves.

Its creation has been especially prominent in GOP advertising run on behalf of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a vulnerable incumbent who voted against the tax law.

When it comes to the bill’s selling points, Republicans hope voters will reward them for a slate of new working-class tax cuts that Trump promised on the campaign trail in 2024. Democrats have panned those deductions as a smokescreen for tax provisions that disproportionately help the wealthy, including a permanent cut in the estate tax and exemptions for investment income.

Republicans say they’re proof that the party is committed to the president’s realignment around blue-collar workers who in the past gravitated to Democrats.

Bessent quipped that he must be the “most popular Cabinet secretary around D.C.,” judging by his interactions with doormen and waiters around Washington.

He did express surprise, however, that many voters are still unfamiliar with the tax breaks, recounting that some California restaurant workers he spoke to after filing season didn’t know about the tips carveout.

His department found that around 7.5 million filers took advantage of “no tax on tips” nationally in 2025. Larger numbers filed for “no tax on overtime” and an enhanced deduction for seniors — around 29 million and 35 million, respectively.

Election-year recriminations

Republicans have, to some extent, adjusted their message in light of the changing political environment. The latest strategy has been to attack Democrats for a wave of socialist victories in states like Colorado and New York.

In that messaging, the tax law serves as a foil — an example of Republicans advancing free-market principles.

“The one big beautiful bill is anti-socialist,” the late Sen. Lindsey Graham told the Washington Examiner in an interview before his sudden death on July 11. “It’s an effort to empower people individually by having lower taxes, and the vast majority of the tax policy helps middle-class people.”

Legislatively, Republicans have attempted to respond to complaints within their own party that passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was not enough of a midterm agenda.

A bipartisan housing bill that passed Congress in June was meant as another step toward addressing voters’ cost-of-living concerns. But much of the debate has become consumed by the SAVE America Act and whether GOP voters will stay home if Republicans fail to pass it.

The housing bill became law in July, but without Trump’s signature — an act of protest over Senate Republicans’ unwillingness to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require them to weaken the filibuster.

The impasse has repeatedly tripped Republicans up over the last six months, making it more difficult to fund the government, renew a key spy program, and even adjourn for the August recess.

One possible off-ramp to the chaos is House Republicans’ plans to include a watered-down version of the SAVE America Act, namely block grants for states that adopt its voting restrictions, into a third reconciliation bill.

It remains to be seen, however, whether the Senate will take up that priority before the midterm elections.

Big Beautiful Bill on the ballot this fall

A little more than a month ago, allies of the Trump administration celebrated the passage of the legislation at the Treasury Department in the historic Cash Room, the site of President Ulysses S. Grant’s Inaugural reception in 1869.

The June 30 event featured Bessent, famed economist Arthur Laffer, and Stephen Moore of Unleash Prosperity. The standing-room crowd gave a rousing applause as Bessent raised a champagne glass to toast the one-year anniversary of the bill’s passage.

Despite the fanfare, it remains to be seen how the legislation will play with voters this fall. The polling results a year later are mixed. A recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that 44% support the law, while 44% oppose, and only one in three believe the economy is on track.

Many congressional Republicans are frustrated with rising gas prices amid the ongoing Iran war, which was estimated to last five weeks but has spanned five months and counting.

Trump has repeatedly defended the economy, calling it “amazing” in an interview on Fox and Friends earlier this week. While focused on the election, Trump said it will not affect his commitment to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

In the interview, Trump cited stock market highs and predicted the economy will soar higher “as soon as this little situation gets worked out,” referring to the war in Iran.

Zach Halaschak contributed to this story.

Members of the Washington Examiner’s staff who have worked on this series over the past several months are Haris Alic, Hailey Bullis, Bob Cusack, Christian Datoc, James A. Downs, Gabrielle M. Etzel, Lauren Green, Zach Halaschak, Chris Irvine, Joseph Lawler, Naomi Lim, Maydeen Merino, Callie Patteson, Mabinty Quarshie, Samantha-Jo Roth, David Sivak, and Ramsey Touchberry.