Why Senate Republicans Are Feuding Over Their Midterm Message

Republican insiders have long worried that they could blow a golden opportunity to retake the Senate this year. And while most are confident that a red wave will still wash enough of their candidates ashore in November to win a majority, some doubt occasionally creeps in.

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, and that McConnell has emphatically rejected.

And while Scott has said that the plan is just his opinion, developed using his own campaign funds, 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, though other provisions of Scott’s plan are popular.

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.

Never mind that McConnell has brushed back Scott, telling reporters at the Capitol last week, “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda. We will focus instead on what the American people are concerned about: inflation, energy, defense, the border and crime.”

McConnell also made it clear who was in charge. “If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader,” he said. “I’ll decide, in consultation with my members, what to put on the floor.”

Scott defended himself last week in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, saying his plan had “hit a nerve” with Washington elites, whom he accused of misleading voters about the sustainability of federal deficits and entitlement programs.

“Part of the deception is achieved by disconnecting so many Americans from taxation,” he wrote. “It’s a genius political move. And it is bankrupting us.”

Scott’s plan has some powerful backers, including the Heritage Foundation, which plans to host him for an event later this month. The think tank has long advocated “broadening the base,” the preferred term on the right for increasing the number of Americans who are subject to taxation.

“Conservatives in this country are demanding an ambitious, conservative agenda,” said Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation. “Therefore, it excites us to see members talking that way.”

Democrats dust off a playbook

Scott’s plan is a fortuitous turn of events for Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, Democrats say.

“Chuck, I’m sure, is salivating,” said Jim Kessler, a former Schumer aide who is now an executive vice president at Third Way, a center-left think tank.

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.

It’s a playbook that Schumer has run before. In 1995, as a member of the House representing New York, he used Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” to accuse Republicans of trying to force cuts in popular spending programs. Gingrich, who became the speaker of the House in 1995 — either because or despite that plan, depending on whom you ask — has embraced Scott’s platform.

“That was probably the first thing that Chuck did that showed him as a national political leader,” recalled Kessler. With Scott’s plan, he said of Schumer, “I’m sure he sees it and says to himself, ‘I’ve taken this apart before.’”

Privately, Democrats are realistic about their chances of hanging onto the Senate, and say they must seize the “gift” Scott has given them to force Republicans onto the defensive. 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.”

During their own retreat on Wednesday, Democrats heard a presentation by Geoff Garin, a pollster, that impressed many of the senators present. Garin’s surveys have found that more voters blame the coronavirus pandemic, “China and foreign supply chains” and “large corporations raising prices to increase their profits” than they do President Biden for inflation.

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

Republicans see the attack on Scott as a desperation play in what could be a difficult election for Senate Democrats, who must defend incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire while trying to pick up seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“If I were them, I would try to use it, too,” said Justin Sayfie, a Republican consultant who runs an influential Florida political news website. “But they’re going to have to put a lot of money behind it. How much penetration are they going to be able to get with a message about Rick Scott?”

Two visions of how to win

McConnell and Scott have a fundamental difference of opinion about how to win the Senate, people who have studied both men say.

There’s McConnell, the calculating insider, who is leery of putting forward a political agenda that could open Republicans up to Democrats’ attacks. Republicans have long memories of how, in past election cycles, Democrats have had success in accusing them of wanting to cut popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.

“McConnell hates variables,” said Kessler, the former Schumer aide. “He’s like a boxer who likes to cut off the sides of the ring.”

In January, when a reporter asked McConnell what his agenda might be if Republicans retake the majority, he replied simply: “That is a very good question. And I’ll let you know when we take it back.”

Then there’s Scott, the ambitious outsider, a former businessman whose presidential aspirations are no secret. He’s rankled some of his fellow Republican senators by taking broad swipes at Washington — despite leading the committee in charge of electing more of them.

And while they share the same goal of winning back the Senate, aides and allies of both men have sniped at one another through the press, particularly over their relationship with Donald Trump.

Scott has cultivated a relationship with the former president — he made sure to send copies of his plan to Mar-a-Lago — while McConnell at times has condemned Trump, who in turn refers to the Senate minority leader as “the Old Crow.” Trump has even tried to recruit Scott as a future majority leader, according to a Politico account.

McConnell’s office declined to comment.

“There will always be critics, but we don’t waste much time worrying about the opinions of Democrat operatives or anonymous Washington consultants,” said Chris Hartline, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Scott chairs.

Asked what the Heritage Foundation would say to Senate leaders like McConnell, Roberts said, “We’re grateful for their service, and we’re looking forward to them embracing Senator Scott’s plan or coming up with a plan of their own.”

What to read

• The U.S. Census Bureau says the 2020 census seriously undercounted the number of Hispanic, Black and Native American residents, even though its overall population count of 323.2 million was largely accurate, Michael Wines and Maria Cramer report.

• In February, the Consumer Price Index rose at its fastest pace in 40 years. Biden blamed Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for the increase, though inflation has been a problem for months, Jeanna Smialek reports.

• As oil prices rise, many governments are working to boost global production, potentially neglecting longer-term efforts to cut use of fossil fuels to fight climate change. Brad Plumer, Lisa Friedman and David Gelles report.

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Two V.P.s, one message for Ukraine

The world got a glimpse of two potential future presidents today, in what we’re told was a sheer coincidence.

Vice President Kamala Harris was visiting Poland, where she met with the country’s leaders, called for an investigation into potential war crimes by the Russian military, held a round-table event with displaced survivors from the war in Ukraine and appeared with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada in a show of Western solidarity.

It so happened that her predecessor, Mike Pence, was in Ukraine on the same day as Harris’s trip. Along with his wife, Karen, he met with some of the refugees who are living in camps near the border with Poland. As Pence noted on Twitter, more than 2 million Ukrainians have fled the country over the last 12 days, according to U.N. figures.

Pence’s trip comes as the former vice president tries to establish himself as a leader of the Republican Party on foreign policy ahead of a possible 2024 run. Last week, Pence blasted unnamed people in the party who, he said, were “apologists for Putin,” the Russian leader.

Our colleague, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent, was traveling with Harris and sending dispatches from Poland all day long. According to a background briefing by an unnamed senior administration official, he reported, teams for the former vice president and the current vice president were “not in contact.”

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

— Blake & Leah