Yet inside the Republican Party, key leaders are split on whether to roll out any sort of governing agenda ahead of the midterm elections in November. With President Joe Biden’s approval rating tumbling, one GOP faction, headed by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, is betting that skewering the Democrats is all that’s needed to wrest control of the Senate. Another, led by House GOP chief Kevin McCarthy, is drawing up positions meant to persuade Americans that voting Republican might improve their lives. “McConnell, I assume, is hoping that anger with Democrats will carry his members over the finish line,” said Frank Luntz, a pollster who worked with Newt Gingrich, then-GOP House whip, to develop the “Contract with America.” When Trump ran for re-election in 2020, the party didn’t release a platform laying out Republican priorities; Trump was the platform. Heading into the midterm campaign season, McConnell is similarly opaque when it comes to his caucus’s priorities should it retake the majority. “That is a very good question,” he told NBC News. “And I’ll let you know when we take it back. … This midterm election will be a report card on the performance of this entire Democratic government: the president, the House and the Senate.” Explaining McConnell’s reasoning, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican whip, said, “You don’t want to make yourself the issue. … I think right now they [Democrats] are a target-rich environment. They’re just giving us a lot of stuff to shoot at.”
“Last November, GOP Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota released a statement slamming the passage of the freshly approved infrastructure law he referred to as “‘President Biden’s multi-trillion dollar socialist wish list,’” CNN reports. “Then in June, Emmer – the House Republican campaign chairman leading attacks on Democrats for supporting the law – quietly submitted a wish of his own.” “Emmer’s plea is one of dozens obtained by CNN in response to a public records request.”