Dem
51
GOP
49
One thing that really annoys Joe Biden and his team is Republican House members voting against bills and then campaigning on the benefits the bills brought their constituents. The administration is now actively working on dealing with this. For example, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has been traveling around the country telling group after group about all the clean energy subsidies and tax credits people can take advantage of as a result of legislation Biden signed. But what is most interesting is where she is going. She is precisely targeting the districts of Republican House members who voted against the bills. Her message is clear: Thanks to Joe Biden, you can save money on solar panels, heat pumps, electric cars, induction stoves, and more while saving the planet for your children and grandchildren. But if it were up to your representative, you wouldn't have any of these things, because he or she voted against them all.
Granholm isn't the only one doing this. White House senior adviser Mitch Landrieu is going to Republican districts and pointing out that they will soon get high-speed Internet, but not due to their representative, who voted against it. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is going to Kentucky to tout the infrastructure projects that will soon create jobs there—along with noting that the local representative opposed them. This is going to be a major pitch for the next year and a half: Pounding House Republicans who opposed bills that benefit their own constituents. They are going to show over and over how these representatives are not looking out for their constituents' best interests, but how the Democrats are doing so, despite Republican opposition. The more painful it is, the better. It's not hard to bring the message "We want you to have high-speed Internet and they want billionaires to have tax cuts." So it is going to be about concrete benefits that people will get as a result of bills that passed over unified Republican opposition.
A key issue for the administration is rolling out actual projects quickly in Republican areas, possibly even before rolling them out in blue areas. The idea is that when voters see construction crews fixing roads, building factories, or installing fiber optic cables, they will get the idea that it isn't all talk, but stuff is actually happening. The $20 billion semiconductor plant Intel is building in Ohio with partial government funding is not going to be finished by the election. However, if hundreds of construction workers are on the site with lots of big machines digging, Democratic politicians can score points in Republican districts nearby by pointing out who was for and who was against it. (V)