ICYMI: Why Senate Republicans Are Feuding Over Their Midterm Message [New York Times]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

New York Times: Why Senate Republicans Are Feuding Over Their Midterm Message

By Blake Hounshell and Leah Askarinam

March 11, 2022

Key Points:

• Republican insiders have long worried that they could blow a… opportunity to retake the Senate this year.

• The latest reason: an ongoing disagreement between two of the top Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, and Rick Scott, the leader of the party’s campaign arm. At issue is the “11-Point Plan to Rescue America” that Scott has presented as a platform for the midterms.

• Democrats have been all too happy to pin its provisions on the Republican Party writ large.

• They’ve seized on one bullet point in particular, which reads: “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.” That idea polls badly, according to Morning Consult.

• On Thursday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee paid for a truck-mounted billboard to troll Senate Republicans during their one-day retreat. “Senate Republicans’ Plan: Raise Your Taxes,” the billboard read.
  
  
• Scott’s plan is a fortuitous turn of events for Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, Democrats say.
  
  
• In the first sentence of a letter to his Senate colleagues this week, Schumer wrote, “As Senate Republicans debate their plan to increase taxes on millions of working Americans, Senate Democrats have focused on ways to get rising prices under control to help working families.”

• Senate Democrats are considering holding hearings, and possibly a series of votes, to highlight Scott’s plan and to force Republicans to take uncomfortable positions on it.

• On the day of the State of the Union, for instance, Senate Democrats ran an ad accusing McConnell of fighting “for the same wealthy insiders who get rich by keeping prices high.”

• “The bottom line here is that Democrats have a very strong case to prosecute on rising costs,” Garin said.
  
  

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