--- title: House Budget Vote Leaves GOP With 2 Bad Options description: Republicans can face angry voters or a furious Trump. Says one Trump ally: “Rude protesters at town halls are a lot easier than primaries.” canonical: https://time.com/7261459/house-budget-vote-medicaid-cuts/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-25T17:57:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-11T00:03:03.737Z article:section: Politics og:title: House Budget Vote Leaves GOP With 2 Bad Options og:description: Republicans can face angry voters or a furious Trump. Says one Trump ally: “Rude protesters at town halls are a lot easier than primaries.” og:url: https://time.com/7261459/house-budget-vote-medicaid-cuts/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt99d89d2e564c6e90/6998c461e1ba00c10b98d4e9/GettyImages-2201316862.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: House Republicans Gather For Weekly Caucus Meeting og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: House Budget Vote Leaves GOP With 2 Bad Options twitter:description: Republicans can face angry voters or a furious Trump. Says one Trump ally: “Rude protesters at town halls are a lot easier than primaries.” twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt99d89d2e564c6e90/6998c461e1ba00c10b98d4e9/GettyImages-2201316862.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # House Budget Vote Leaves Republicans With 2 Bad Options: Angry Voters or Angry Trump  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Feb 25, 2025 5:57 PM UTC  House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks during a news conference ahead of an expected budget vote at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on Feb. 25, 2025. House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks during a news conference ahead of an expected budget vote at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on Feb. 25, 2025.Andrew Harnik—Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Feb 25, 2025 5:57 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ Today is shaping up to be the most consequential day yet in the House during this second Trump presidency, and Democrats will be watching with popcorn to see if those across the aisle have what it takes to stay united. Whether Republicans demonstrate chaos or discipline, Democrats have plenty of reasons to see a win on the horizon, as the entire GOP caucus is forced to clock their verdict on cutting programs that touch roughly [one-in-four](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/24/medicaid-gop-cuts-republicans-congress-00205542) Americans—and [half](https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2024/05/03/new-report-focuses-on-child-health-coverage-declines-and-what-states-can-do-to-help-reconnect-kids-with-medicaid-chip/) of all children—to pay for currenttax breaks for the [rich](https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver) and to boost [border security](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-republicans-face-headwinds-seek-pass-budget-trumps-agenda-rcna193436). A late-Monday meeting included vague [assurances](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/24/house-republicans-protests-00205892) from Republicans’ Leadership team that the $2 trillion in proposed budget cuts would spare _real_ Medicaid services and instead slash away at waste, fraud, and abuse. There were also promises of almost [$900 billion](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/24/medicaid-gop-cuts-republicans-congress-00205542) in energy-related spending cuts. And then there’s roughly [$230 billion](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/02/12/congress/house-gop-budget-targets-snap-cuts-00203872) in cuts to food-stamp programs on the table, which could further make life tougher on poor families. As Top Republicans worked well past midnight into Tuesday, their footing got more wobbly by the hour as more of the GOP rank-and-file began to wonder if they were walking into a trap of their own making. As many as a half-dozen Republicans were openly wavering about extending tax cuts that could add $5 trillion to the national debt over a decade, [according](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/02/trump-budget-cuts-national-debt/) to Congress’ bookkeepers. Boiled to its most basic, Republican Leadership’s message could be [reduced](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/02/24/congress/mike-johnson-medicaid-cuts-00205771) to a plea for trust on a vote that could cost many swing-district incumbents their jobs. Yet voting against the bill means standing in the way of delivering a big part of President Donald Trump’s agenda. Yes, Republicans have been getting an [earful](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/24/house-republicans-protests-00205892) from their districts, but those skirmishes are going to look perfectly benign compared to what a vindictive Trump could [unleash](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/us/politics/hegseth-trump-tillis-senate.html) for lawmakers who show too much pluck. As a Trump administration official from his first term told me: “Rude protesters at town halls are a lot easier than primaries.” The GOP can afford to lose just two votes, and it already seems to have shed at least one via Rep. Victoria Spartz’s early-warned [defection](https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2025-02-24/whats-in-the-house-budget-bill-and-whats-delaying-it). Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Republican who used to be a Democrat, [told](https://time.com/7261307/jeff-van-drew-trump-republican-budget-bill-medicaid-cuts-concerns/) TIME’s Nik Popli Monday evening that he had called Trump to say he might also vote against it if the steep cuts to Medicaid aren’t pared back. Meanwhile, several conservative members of the Republican conference like Reps. Tom Massie, Tim Burchett, and Warren Davidson are making noise because they view the cuts as not deep enough. Heading into the vote, now expected as soon as Tuesday evening, House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to downplay the wavering or hostile GOP lawmakers. “There may be more than one. But they’ll get there,” Johnson said Monday when he spoke to the conservative [network](https://americansforprosperity.org/featured/americans-for-prosperity-hosts-house-speaker-mike-johnson-for-congressional-conversation/) convened by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch. “This is a prayer request. Just pray this through for us because it is very high stakes.” Those close to the Speaker’s Office, however, were trying to paint him as a skilled inside player who could nevertheless pull a ripcord and try again if his gamesmanship doesn’t work on the first try. It was only last month that Johnson failed to keep his job as Speaker on the first count of his first ballot. He [twisted](https://time.com/7204593/mike-johnson-speaker-house-vote/) enough arms in private before the House clerk closed the vote, letting him avoid a second round of balloting. Still, his kitchen cabinet added, Johnson has a host of other options if Tuesday’s vote does not break his way, and the outcome doesn’t close any doors for a re-do. Still, Johnson’s team doesn’t have the luxury of dragging this out too much. Trump’s agenda stalled in Congress during his first term. He didn’t [sign](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-and-the-2018-midterms-examining-the-potential-electoral-impact/) his tax cuts into law until December of his first year, which some in the White House believe didn’t give voters enough time to feel their impact before the 2018 midterms. Johnson wants to make sure voters know their taxes didn’t go up before they vote in 2026, according to two Hill aides briefed on his pitch to holdout lawmakers. Nonetheless, Republicans were privately musing early Tuesday that the vote on this spending framework could still end up delayed. “There may be a vote tonight,” Johnson conceded Tuesday morning. “There might not be. Stay tuned.” It was, bluntly, less than ideal for their hopes. Whenever the vote happens, the House Republicans’ plan is expected to attract zero support from Democrats, who have made the cuts to Medicaid a Waterloo of their still-forming strategy to rebuild themselves into a functioning opposition party to Trump. The goal, they say, is to stop middle- and lower-class voters from losing valuable government services to pay for lower taxes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations. While they would prefer to block the cuts entirely, Democrats see a political win even if they move forward. One [analysis](https://www.rwjf.org/en/insights/our-research/2025/02/reducing-federal-support-for-medicaid-expansion-would-shift-costs-to-states-and-likely-result-in-coverage-losses.html) suggests as many as 16 million Americans could fall off Medicaid programs and 11 million could lose health coverage. That kind of discomfort makes for excellent cannon fodder for the midterms. Since World War II, the party that holds the White House has lost a net average of 27 seats in the House in its first at-bat with voters. The worst backlash election was in 2010, when Obama-era Democrats lost 63 seats. An early sign of that thumping was Democrats facing angry constituents in tense [townhalls](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/25/democrats-preparing-blast-republicans-health-care-00205895) that seem all too familiar right now. Democrats, understanding the potential here, are aggressively [working](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/02/24/congress/hakeem-jeffries-republican-budget-00205698) with their partners in swing districts to leverage this moment as a starting point for a sustained effort to take back the House, which currently stands at 218 Republicans and 215 Democrats. In conversations with senior Democrats, it’s very clear that the playbook has been carefully considered—even if it has been very slow to come together. Overlaying government datasets, political maps, and vote tallies from last year, it quickly becomes apparent that Democrats see a plausible path back to a majority in Medicaid hotspots for those making about $21,000 or less a year. Take Iowa’s First District, the southeast part of the state where almost 103,000 residents are enrolled in Medicaid. Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks carried Election Day last year by fewer than 800 votes in a district that has a baked-in GOP advantage of about 3 points. Or take Pennsylvania’s Tenth District, which is home to Harrisburg and York. The district has a five-point lean to Republicans but incumbent Rep. Scott Perry won by just 5,100 votes. It is home to about 102,000 Medicaid residents. Or the northern Denver suburbs that make up the Colorado Eighth, where Republican Rep. Gabe Evans won by about 2,500 votes. Almost 126,000 constituents are on Medicaid in a district that is about as evenly split as any in the country. The list of vulnerable Republicans in Medicaid-reliant districts goes on. Advisers to Democratic Leadership see it as a roadmap to taking back the House. There are about 30 potentially vulnerable districts served currently by Republican incumbents with a deep reliance on Medicaid programs. In California’s Twenty-Second District, Republican Rep. David Valadao represents almost 330,000 Medicaid enrollees in a district he won by fewer than 12,000 votes. Democrats have been anything but subtle in their messaging. In a memo sent late Monday, House Democrats’ official campaign arm telegraphed an explicit warning to Republicans expecting tough re-election bids: Democrats “will hold every so-called moderate House Republican accountable for their support of the Republican agenda to rip away health care and food from American families. Republicans will find that a _yes_ vote doomed their reelection chances come November 2026.” It does not matter if those _yes_ votes actually lead to a signed budget bill that guts Medicaid. The possibility alone—with or without the sustained tax cuts—could power Democrats’ message heading into what is going to be a very long march toward next year’s midterms. It’s why so many Republicans are prepared to go to the floor today with a vote card in their hands and a pit in their stomachs. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7261459/house-budget-vote-medicaid-cuts/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7261459/house-budget-vote-medicaid-cuts/"},"headline":"House Budget Vote Leaves Republicans With 2 Bad Options: Angry Voters or Angry Trump","datePublished":"2025-02-25T17:57:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-11T00:03:03.737Z","description":"“Rude protesters at town halls are a lot easier than primaries,\" says one Trump ally.","url":"https://time.com/7261459/house-budget-vote-medicaid-cuts/","keywords":["The D.C. 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