It was supposed to be Trump’s big legislative achievement. It could be a weapon for Democrats to win in the midterms

(CNN) — President Donald Trump marked the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding on July Fourth with a speech touting a roaring stock market, urging election reforms, and hailing military interventions in Venezuela and Iran.

But another anniversary went conspicuously unmarked: the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by Trump exactly one year earlier.

At its ceremonious signing, the act seemed poised to be a defining legislative achievement for Republicans to run on in November.

But 12 months later, the law’s cutbacks to key safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps have fueled a chorus of criticism, challenging the effort to promote its populist and business-friendly tax cuts.

While the president and his party have sought to play up the law’s most popular provisions, even attempting to recast it as a “Working Families Tax Cut Bill,” Democrats have seized on negative polling and the Republican rebrand as evidence of its failures.

Today, it looks increasingly uncertain which party will benefit from the law’s passage, as the landmark policy package has become a major factor in competitive battleground races that could decide control of the House of Representatives.

“We know that it’s going to be a robust campaign,” said Rep. Tom Barrett, a Republican seeking reelection in Michigan’s 7th District. “I represent one of the top targeted districts in the entire country, and it’s on me to go out and sell the merits of this.”

Healthcare fallout

Historic reductions to federal Medicaid spending and changes to eligibility requirements quickly emerged as the most politically fraught component of the legislation.

The law, known as OBBBA, is projected to slash roughly $1.2 trillion from the key public health insurance program for lower-income Americans through 2035, leaving 7.5 million more people without coverage by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The most notable provision adds a federal work requirement to Medicaid, a longtime GOP goal.

Democrats across the country have ripped into the GOP over the sweeping changes.

In California’s battleground 22nd District, for example, Democrat Randy Villegas has made fallout from the Medicaid cuts a centerpiece of his campaign against incumbent GOP Rep. David Valadao.

“We’re the most impacted in the entire country, where two out of every three of our constituents rely on Medicaid,” Villegas told CNN.

“Almost 70,000 people stand to lose healthcare in our district,” he said, adding that local clinics he’s spoken to are “worried about the possibility of shutting down and not being able to provide services to our community.”

Valadao has said that OBBBA will preserve Medicaid long term.

“One of my goals representing the Central Valley is to protect Medicaid for those who truly need it the most: seniors, vulnerable children, and disabled Americans,” he said in a statement to CNN last month.

In Iowa’s competitive US Senate race, Democrat Josh Turek has hammered Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson over her vote for the legislation and its reforms, which have stressed healthcare providers. Turek — who uses a wheelchair because of his spina bifida, attributed to his father’s exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War — references his own experience navigating the healthcare system to underscore his opposition to the changes.

“I certainly know firsthand the importance of access to quality healthcare,” he has said.

The effect on healthcare in rural parts of the country was a subject of concern before the bill became law, including among moderate Republicans. As a concession, the final package created a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program designed to buttress rural healthcare.

Hinson and her allies have touted the program to voters. An ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee pointed out that it secures “more than $209 million for rural healthcare in Iowa.”

The fund should provide a much-needed, though temporary, investment in communities that have long lacked adequate healthcare services, experts said. States plan to use the funds to address chronic disease, beef up workforces and expand telehealth services, among other uses.

But the program doesn’t come close to replacing the estimated $137 billion in federal Medicaid funding that rural areas are projected to lose over a decade, according to nonprofit health policy group KFF. Iowa, for instance, is expected to lose more than $3.8 billion in federal Medicaid spending during that period.

Notably, the work mandate and more frequent eligibility checks in Medicaid are expected to increase the strain, particularly in rural areas, as people lose coverage.

“There’s no doubt that the $50 billion investment for rural health transformation is helpful,” said Timothy McBride, a health economics professor at Washington University’s School of Public Health. “But the net effect is probably going to be that the rural health systems will be worse off.”

Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who represents Wisconsin’s 3rd District — among the most competitive in the country — said the reforms were necessary to root out waste and fraud.

And “there’s truly dignity in working and supporting yourself and your family, and that’s what Republicans are trying to return to Americans,” he added.

But Democrats have historically enjoyed an advantage with voters on healthcare issues, and it’s one they are pressing in the midterms. One healthcare advocacy group, Protect Our Care, is launching a nearly $5 million campaign in more than a dozen key states that will include ads, town halls and a bus tour to highlight the healthcare cuts.

“House Republicans built their entire legislative agenda around a bill that made life measurably harder, hungrier, and more expensive for working families,” said Justin Chermol, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The law would prove to be “a political loser that will drag down every vulnerable Republican running in a swing seat this November,” he predicted.

Touting no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime

Earlier this year, Trump claimed, inaccurately, that the law contained the largest tax cuts in American history, “including no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors.”

A signature 2024 campaign promise, it’s been an emphatic talking point for members facing election in 2026.

In battleground races in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, in the country’s manufacturing heartlands — where seasonal laborers and hourly workers represent key constituencies — Republicans have been making the rounds to small businesses and construction crews to highlight the multitude of tax provisions in the law.

“I took a trip out to a road paving site in my district, and the workers there were very excited about no taxes on overtime,” said Barrett, the Michigan lawmaker. “A lot of them, because of the seasonal nature of road paving in Michigan, work a lot of overtime hours during the paving season and work less during the non-paving season, so this was a really critical thing for them.”

Van Orden also pointed to provisions to encourage business investment. “I was just with two different manufacturers today, and they’re both utilizing this program,” he said.

For Democrats, the criticism here is nuanced. Rep. Susie Lee is seeking reelection in the highly competitive 3rd District of Nevada, covering southern Las Vegas, where calls for “no taxes on tips” resonated with the large population employed in the services industry.

Lee, who voted against OBBBA, said she supports cutting taxes on tips and overtime. But “the fact that this expires in ’28 when you’re giving the wealthiest Americans tax cuts that never expire seems a little unfair to me,” she said.

Lee also argued that whatever benefits the tax cuts provided for working Americans have been offset by cost-of-living increases she blames on the Trump administration.

“You know, I have Tasia, she’s a 33-year-old waitress. She received a $2,500 refund, but she had to turn around and spend it on medical care, because she couldn’t afford health insurance, and had foregone purchasing insurance,” Lee said.

Overall, the tax measures in the law, including making permanent individual income tax provisions and a major business tax break from 2017, disproportionately help the wealthy. About 85% of filers will receive a tax cut in 2026. But those in the bottom fifth of the income ladder will see only a 0.8% uptick in after-tax income, while those in the top fifth get a 3.4% boost, according to the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

And many of the temporary deductions — including an enhanced deduction for senior citizens and a tax break on auto loan interest — primarily benefit middle-class and upper-middle-class taxpayers, said Joseph Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the center.

But more money in voters’ pockets is a powerful argument for Republicans.

“Voters know the difference between a party that lets them keep more of what they earn and one that keeps asking them to pay more for their radical socialist agenda, and that choice will be crystal clear on Election Day,” said Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Savings and costs

Democrats are betting that the bill’s changes to safety-net programs like Medicaid and food stamps will matter more to voters than the tax savings and economic stimulus.

On top of the major changes to Medicaid, the OBBBA is projected to slash federal support for food stamps by nearly $187 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office — the largest cut in the program’s history, advocates say. Expanded work requirements, which have already kicked in, are forecast to reduce enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, by 2.4 million people a month, on average, according to CBO.

JoAnna Mendoza, the Democrat challenging GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona’s toss-up 6th District, is campaigning on the loss of support for vulnerable community members.

Voters she talked to described growing pressure to put food on the table, said Mendoza, who grew up in a family that relied on food stamps. “We need to make sure mom-and-pops are able to stay up, that families have what they need to make sure that they’re able to feed their kids,” she said.

SNAP enrollment has plummeted by more than 4 million people between July 2025 and March 2026, according to an analysis of US Department of Agriculture and state data by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Much of the decline likely stems from states implementing documentation and work requirements, as well as expanded limits on immigrants’ eligibility.

“People are hitting an administrative wall,” said Joseph Llobrera, senior director of research for food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Van Orden said the criticism is misguided. “If there’s less money going into the SNAP program, it’s not because Republicans are trying to cut benefits. It’s because the economy is improving and people are getting off the program as designed, or they’ve been committing fraud,” the Wisconsin Republican said.

And Barrett said he heard from constituents who “had a noticeable increase in their tax refund and tax return” from OBBBA.

Refunds jumped 11% to more than $3,400, on average, this past tax filing season, according to the Treasury Department.

“It’s a very direct thing, and it is felt by people. As I like to describe it, the people working the hardest out in the economy have the greatest benefit under this tax proposal that we put forward,” Barrett said.

Yet Trump, almost as soon as the bill was passed, acknowledged the messaging challenge. Last August, he was already casting about for better branding. “I’m not going to use the term ‘great, big, beautiful,’ that was good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s all about,” Trump said.

In the year since, distracted by war, inflation and steady streams of controversy, the president has been an uneven messenger for his signature legislative accomplishment — an opening that Democrats are seizing.

“The proof is in the pudding by the fact that they don’t even call it the One Big Beautiful Bill anymore,” said Lee of Nevada. “That’s how vastly unpopular it is.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.