Project 2025 has become a constant political problem for Donald Trump. Now, a liberal group is hoping it can spread some of that political problem to House Republicans.
Four websites are launching Thursday linking the voting records of four Republican congressmen to policies found in The Heritage Foundation’s infamous project, targeting leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, as well as vulnerable Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and David Schweikert of Arizona.
Published by the House Accountability War Room, a liberal group affiliated with Courage for America, the microsites angle for a congressional foothold in the Democrats’ effort to use Project 2025 to sink the GOP in November.
Each microsite consists of a single page and focuses on a single member. On one side of a scrolling table will be policies found in The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership,” with page numbers and a link to the external document. (The site will not link to The Heritage Foundation or its official Project 2025 website.)
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More microsites will launch in the near future, with more focus on vulnerable Republicans, according to a source familiar with the campaign.
“Despite their best efforts to distance themselves from Project 2025, House Republicans can’t hide from their own records; we’re putting them on notice, and we have more to come,” War Room spokesperson Danny Turkel told NOTUS. “All it takes is a quick look at how they’ve voted and the budgets they’ve proposed to see Project 2025 isn’t someone else’s plan; it’s House Republicans’ plan that they’re working to enact.”
Rep. Bacon told NOTUS, “I’ve never read the 2025 plan and don’t plan to do so. This is a Democrat conjured up story and all hogwash.”
Other member offices did not respond to requests for comment.
For years, The Heritage Foundation has scored members of Congress on how closely they vote with the policy preferences of Heritage. If the House Accountability War Room has its way, those scores will become toxic markers of adherence to Project 2025 ideas.
On each site, a lawmaker’s past voting record on similar policies to those appearing in Project 2025 will be featured. For Johnson, it’s the privatization of Medicare and cutting funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. For Scalise, it’s tax cuts for big business. And for Bacon and Schweikert, it’s repealing IRS funding and abolishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Descriptions of Johnson’s and Schweikert’s microsites included favorable quotes from the lawmakers about Project 2025. Johnson said in July that, though he hasn’t read the full guidebook, he supports “the groups that are behind it and the principles that they’ve been working on.”
With Project 2025, perception has become a reality, and thanks to a deluge of Democratic messaging, a number of voters perceive Project 2025 as Trump’s personal boogeyman, a dystopian dragnet vastly different from today’s America.
Polling suggests it’s the best hand Democrats have to play. And while using the playbook against Trump was the No. 1 priority, Democrats would love to spread the blame to other Republicans — especially those like Bacon and Schweikert in competitive districts.
Despite Project 2025 focusing on the executive branch, the microsites will argue the blueprint also has a place in the halls of Congress. But a connection between Republican members and Project 2025 requires context.
The plan for a second Trump administration is expansive. It comprises an online training academy, a conservative personnel database, a playbook for the president’s first 180 days in office and the Mandate for Leadership — the policy guidebook each microsite will reference.
Heritage has published a policy guidebook in each presidential election cycle since the Reagan administration. Much of its policy is recycled conservative ideas, like corporate tax cuts, though Project 2025’s edition reflects some populist policies favored by Trump and the national conservative movement too.
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Ben T.N. Mause is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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