Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. Trump's $5,000 promise is not taking off.
Chris Stirewalt:
Consumers are already getting crushed by inflation, high interest rates and high prices. Bond traders are punishing Uncle Sam for becoming a fiscal basket case with a $40 trillion debt and not even concepts of a plan for what to do about it. Even the most cynical Republican lawmaker would be able to see how the hangover would be worse than the high — a lesson Democrats learned the hard way in the Biden era.
So, like the tariff bonuses and DOGE dividends Trump has promised voters before, the midterm payola probably falls into the familiar category of “stuff the president says.” But like his decision to try to rescue two struggling Atlantic City casinos by opening a third one, Trump loves to raise the stakes. Trying to pay off voters with money mortgaged against future generations is a little like using his creditors’ cash to bring in Michael Jackson for the grand opening of the Trump Taj Mahal.
But who is the target audience for the dubious dividend? It certainly isn’t conservatives, who are already feeling seasick from a wild fiscal ride with Trump so far. It can’t be progressives and liberals since, even if they liked the idea of Trump’s anarcho-Keynesianism, they wouldn’t believe his promises anyway. The customers Trump is trying to get through the doors of the GOP casino are those who a) think a massive debt-financed stimulus would be good and b) still tend to believe the things the president says.
The share of Americans who believe that Trump keeps his promises slid from a November 2024 high of 51 percent to 38 percent this spring, and given his many failed efforts to declare victory in the Iran war since then, one does not imagine that number has increased.
Are there enough voters who both a) believe Trump will actually deliver on his promise and b) think that it’s a good policy to lift Republicans’ chances to at least avoid a wipeout of the kind they faced in 2018? People do love free money, but the belated introduction of such a wild policy proposal makes it hard to predict. Certainly, Republicans running in suburban districts and states with large numbers of college-educated voters won’t look forward to explaining their thoughts on the debt bomb.
Mira Bhakta at The Hill:
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kans.) appeared to shift his opinion on President Trump’s $5,000 dividends announced earlier this week.
In a debate at the Kansas State Fair against Democratic opponent Adam Hamilton, a moderator asked both candidates if they supported the dividends, citing the proposal’s $1.2 trillion cost amid the growing national debt.
“I’m going to bring in all the information, and then make a decision,” he said. “But look, this is not the first time I’ve disagreed with President Trump, and it probably won’t be the last.”
“Instead, I said, I’m going to be focused on Kansas jobs. I’m going to be focused on protecting Kansas agriculture and the Kansas cattle industry,” he continued.
Marshall’s remark comes after his apparent support for the president’s proposal in social media post Wednesday.
Meredith Lee Hill, Jason Beeferman and Mia McCarthy at POLITICO:
Top Republican lawmakers had no idea President Donald Trump was going to promise $5,000 checks to every adult American so long as his party keeps control of Congress. Now, they’re grappling with how to handle the fallout.
GOP leaders have privately pushed back on similar Trump promises of giving money to Americans in the past year, according to four people granted anonymity to share details of closed-door meetings. Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill were blindsided by Trump’s Wednesday night announcement in Dallas, and are trying to manage lawmakers’ and voters’ expectations about a trillion-dollar-plus proposal they cannot deliver.
![]()
The only thing that I knew of was that he has this concept of a dividend of all Americans being able to share in the success of America,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who appeared supportive of the idea, said in an interview on the sidelines of the party’s midterm convention. “But last night, no, I was just like you and everybody else when I went, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. Okay.’”
NRCC Chair Richard Hudson added in an interview: “First, I’d heard of it, so I want to talk to him and get some details before I comment.” Hudson said the idea was “exciting,” but he didn’t indicate the House GOP campaign arm would start touting the idea in ads for battleground candidates.
As for the chances of the measure passing Congress, Hudson responded: “Not this Congress. Because Democrats in the Senate will never go through with it.”
Republican leaders, indeed, don’t have the votes to pass such an offer this year, with some in the party questioning the legality of Trump effectively declaring he would pay for votes. GOP fiscal hawks and others also quickly shot it down.
And some Republicans worry Trump’s last-ditch move steps on their carefully laid messaging about the economic benefits of their major tax cuts package — benefits which have largely been erased by the Iran war and tariffs, according to five senior Republicans, who were also granted anonymity to speak candidly.
“It seems incredibly desperate,” said one of the House Republicans.
