In the final phase of this year’s election campaign, the Democrats in the House of Representatives are pursuing an aggressive strategy of linking Project 2025 with the Republicans in the House of Representatives. They hope that the controversial conservative document will lend a hand them win the majority in the lower house in the November elections.
The Democrats cite Project 2025 at every step – in party leadership press conferences, debates in the plenary, public committee hearings and private conversations in the hallway – and warned that Republicans in Congress are already adopting the right’s policy paper and will return to the senior pattern next year if voters continue to give the Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives.
“They are on their way to making these things a reality,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
The Democrats are also taking their message to the streets.
In closed strategy sessions on Capitol Hill, they have invited outside experts to brief lawmakers on the various measures of Project 2025. The coaching campaign is designed to lend a hand Democrats navigate the voluminous document – which runs to around 900 pages – and educate lawmakers on its more controversial components.
The goal is for lawmakers to then share this information with voters as they return home for town hall meetings and other district events.
“There are members who want to learn about certain areas. So for me in the Latina community, education is very important. So tell me where I can find educational materials. And then they’ll help you and educate you on the key points of the plan,” said Rep. Nanette Díaz Barragán (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
The trainings are led by the Democrats’ Project 2025 task force. launched in June by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who says the conservative agenda – which aims to staff federal agencies with supporters of conservative causes – poses a real threat to the foundations of American democracy.
The final session on Thursday focused on the immigration components of Project 2025, which aims to curb border crossings, ease the deportation process for people living in the country illegally and introduce modern restrictions on legal immigration.
The task force has also examined the programs of Republican candidates challenging Democratic incumbents to determine the extent to which their policies are compatible with Project 2025.
“This has all been very helpful for the members. And the members are holding town hall meetings on this, they’ve had virtual calls,” said Barragán, who is attending a Hispanic heritage event in her district this weekend.
“There is no doubt that I will speak about the immigration aspects of Project 2025,” she said.
Launched in 2022 by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a comprehensive blueprint of conservative policy priorities designed to shape the agenda of the next Republican president. Proposals include measures to restrict access to abortion nationwide, abolish the Departments of Education and Commerce, deny the legitimacy of gay marriage and end federal efforts to combat climate change.
In addition, the bill is intended to put a stop to what many Republicans see as the government’s “weaponization” of conservatives by making it easier to fire existing federal employees and replace them with an “army” of hand-picked GOP loyalists.
During the presidential debate this month, Vice President Harris characterized Project 2025 as a “dangerous plan” which former President Trump “wants to implement if he is re-elected.”
Trump denied any connection to the project and reiterated that argument on the debate stage on Tuesday.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump replied.
“There is. I haven’t read it. I deliberately don’t want to read it. I’m not going to read it,” he continued. “This was a group of people who got together and came up with some ideas, some of them were good, some of them were bad, but it doesn’t make any difference.”
However, the Democrats do not accept this argument – and want to ensure that voters do not. They are quick to point out that the coalition of conservatives behind the project includes groups led by former Trump administration officials, some of whom are likely to rejoin Trump’s team should he win another term. That list includes Russell Vought, Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, and Stephen Miller, a former speechwriter and senior adviser to Trump.
“I think in the swing states, people are concerned about that – about the radicalness and extremity of the agenda and whether some of these people would be part of a Trump administration,” said Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California. “Even if Trump didn’t write the agenda, is he going to hire these kinds of people?”
Republicans have largely dismissed the idea that Project 2025 could be a liability for GOP candidates in November, saying Democrats have launched a desperate campaign to distract from Biden administration policies that could prove unpopular in some swing districts.
“When Democrats realized that their open borders, crime-fueling and inflation policies were being rejected by Americans, they fabricated a false attack based on something House Republicans had never even read,” said Will Reinert, national spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans. “This desperate lie is the clearest sign yet that House Democrats see their chances of regaining the majority dwindling.”
But the Democrats were encouraged by surveys This suggests that voters not only know about Project 2025, but also largely reject its content. And they are using every opportunity to bring the document to the forefront in the final phase of the election campaign.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Representative Pete Aguilar (Calif.), Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, used press conferences this week to Linking Project 2025 with Trump and the Republicans on the lower ballots.
And DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, has also been actively involved in the counter-campaign. Her office has compiled a document noting the similarities between the measures promoted by Project 2025 and those pushed by House Republicans in the current debate over government spending.
“We’ve laid out what’s in the budgets, and that reflects what’s in Trump’s Project 2025,” she said. “That’s a big, big transformation of services for the American people.”
This direct comparison has given Democrats ammunition for their final effort before Election Day.
“We see the direct connection to Project 2025, as they are already trying to implement parts of it,” said Barragán, who seemed pleasantly surprised that an unknown strategy paper is finding resonance outside Washington.
“In these swing states, real activists are coming forward and saying, ‘I’ve heard about Project 2025, it sounds terrible,'” she said.
“If someone who doesn’t live in the Beltway tells you about Project 2025 and says two or three negative things about it, that’s a success because it’s reaching people.”
