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Republicans race for legislative wins ahead of midterms

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by Sudiksha Kochi and Mike Lillis - 05/12/26 6:00 AM ET

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by Sudiksha Kochi and Mike Lillis - 05/12/26 6:00 AM ET

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Republicans are scrambling to secure more legislative wins this summer as the issue of affordability increasingly becomes a liability heading into November’s midterms.

President Trump and Republicans scored a huge victory last year with their “big, beautiful bill,” a package of tax and spending cuts that GOP lawmakers are trumpeting on the campaign trail. But that accomplishment has done little to address the rising cost of many consumer goods — an inflationary trend that’s been only aggravated by President Trump’s global tariffs and military conflict with Iran.

Now, as the big, beautiful bill approaches its one-year anniversary, Republican leaders are racing to pass a series of proposals that tackle the high cost of living. At the top of the list is a long-stalled bill to make housing more affordable and a new proposal to pause the federal gas tax to bring down prices at the pump.

The trend is a tacit acknowledgement that Republicans need more legislative victories to sell to voters in a cycle that’s been largely defined by lengthy government shutdowns and economic anxieties outside the Beltway.

But battles among House Republicans, and between Republicans in the House and Senate, could complicate passage of those very bills.

In a CBS News interview on Monday, Trump said he’s looking to suspend the federal gas tax for a “period of time,” noting that when the price of gas goes down, “we’ll let it phase back in.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) immediately seized on Trump’s remarks, saying they will introduce bills to suspend the gas tax.

“People’s gas prices are very high, energy prices are high, everything’s high,” Hawley told Politico’s E&E News. “We, Congress, need to do everything we can to get that down. So, you know, maybe we should take some votes on some things to lower those costs, lower health care costs, lower the cost of gas.”

Luna wrote on the social platform X that, “American families need this relief on gas prices. My office will be working directly with President Trump to ensure we deliver this win for the American people.”

The average price of a gallon of regular gas was up to $4.52 on Monday from $3.14 one year ago, according to AAA.

And as gas prices have climbed throughout Trump’s two-month war with Iran, the president’s approval rating has dropped, leaving Republicans worried about the national mood dragging down their individual races. Just 38 percent of registered voters approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted between May 1 and 4, and 69 percent said they disapproved of the president’s actions on rising prices.

House Republicans are also looking to revive a Senate-passed housing bill that has long stalled in the lower chamber amid dissatisfaction from hardline conservatives. The legislation, the most sweeping housing bill in decades if it passes, would approve incentives to build new homes, establish a program to convert abandoned buildings into housing developments and authorize new grants to modernize existing homes, among other affordability priorities.

But hardline conservatives have railed against provisions in the bill that would temporarily ban the creation of central bank digital currency (CBDC) until 2030, and require large institutional investors of build-to-rent single-family homes to sell that property within seven years. Members of the House Freedom Caucus and privacy-minded conservatives have argued for a permanent CBDC ban.

House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) have been negotiating changes to the bill, according to Punchbowl News.

The Senate, meanwhile, is expected to take up House-passed legislation that would reauthorize spending for food and agricultural programs — legislation that is normally passed every five years but has not been enacted since 2018.

The farm bill is sprawling and contains provisions that could benefit various regions of the country. Successful passage could give lawmakers concrete wins to take on the campaign trail, particularly in agriculture-heavy districts that have been especially hard-hit by Trump’s tariffs and high fertilizer prices caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

But it was the subject of controversy in the House over several provisions aimed at limiting lawsuits against pesticide makers, preventing localities from adopting pesticide regulations and blocking the need for additional permits for pesticide use. Luna, who led the amendment to strip th