House Democrats have adopted an aggressive strategy of linking Project 2025 to House Republicans in the final stretch of this year’s campaign, hoping the controversial conservative document will help them flip control of the lower chamber in November’s elections.
The Democrats are invoking Project 2025 at every turn — in leadership press conferences, chamber-floor debates, public committee hearings and private hallway conversations — warning that Republicans in Congress are already pulling pages from the right-wing policy paper and will return to the same playbook again next year if voters keep the GOP in control of the House.
“They’re on the road to trying to make these things a reality,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said.
Democrats are also taking their message on the road.
In closed-door strategy sessions on Capitol Hill, they’ve hosted outside experts to brief lawmakers on the various policies contained in Project 2025. The coaching campaign is designed to help Democrats navigate the lengthy document — which runs for roughly 900 pages — and educate members about its more controversial components.
The aim is for lawmakers to then relay that information to voters when they return home for town halls and other district events.
“There are members that want to know about particular areas. So, for me, in the Latina community, education’s huge. So tell me where I can find education stuff. And then they’ll help you, educate you, on what the toplines are directly from the plan,” said Rep. Nanette Díaz Barragán (D-Calif.), head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
The education sessions are being spearheaded by the Democrats’ Project 2025 task force, launched in June by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who says the conservative agenda — which seeks to fill federal agencies with loyalists to conservative causes — poses a real threat to the foundations of American democracy.
The latest session on Thursday focused on the immigration components of Project 2025, which aim to crack down on border crossings, ease the process of deportation for those in the country illegally, and place new restrictions on legal immigration.
The task force has also researched the platforms of GOP candidates challenging Democratic incumbents, to see where those policies mesh with Project 2025.
“That’s all been very helpful for the members. And members are doing town halls on it, they’ve been doing virtual calls,” said Barragán, who is attending a Hispanic heritage event in her district this weekend.
“There’s no doubt that I will talk about the Project 2025 aspects of immigration,” she said.
Launched in 2022 by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a sweeping blueprint of conservative policy priorities designed to steer the agenda of the next GOP president. Among its recommendations are provisions to scale back abortion access around the country; eliminate the departments of Education and Commerce; deny the legitimacy of gay marriage; and end government efforts to fight climate change.
It also seeks to rein in what many Republicans consider the “weaponization” of government against conservatives by making it easier to fire existing federal employees and replace them with an “army” of hand-picked GOP loyalists.
During this month’s presidential debate, Vice President Harris characterized Project 2025 as a “dangerous plan” that former President Trump “intends on implementing if he were elected again.”
Trump has denied any affiliation with the project, and he amplified that argument on the debate stage Tuesday.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump countered.
“That’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it,” he continued. “This was a group of people that got together, they came up with some ideas, I guess some good, some bad, but it makes no difference.”
Democrats, however, aren’t buying that argument — and want to make sure voters don’t either. They’re quick to point out that the coalition of conservatives behind the project include groups that are led by former Trump administration officials, some of whom are expected to join Trump’s team again if he wins another term. That list includes Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, and Stephen Miller, a former Trump speechwriter and senior adviser.
“In swing states I think people are concerned about it — about the radicalness and extremeness of the agenda, and whether some of those people would be part of a Trump administration,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said. “Even if Trump didn’t write it, is he going to be hiring those types of people?”
Republicans, meanwhile, have largely dismissed the idea that Project 2025 will be a liability for GOP candidates in November. They say Democrats have launched a frantic campaign to distract from the policies of the Biden administration that might prove unpopular in some battleground districts.
“When Democrats recognized their own open-border, pro-crime and pro-inflation policies were hated by Americans, they fabricated a false attack based on something House Republicans had never even read,” said Will Reinert, national spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm. “This desperate lie is the clearest sign yet that House Democrats see their chances of regaining the majority dwindling.”
Yet Democrats have been encouraged by polls suggesting that voters are not only aware of Project 2025, but they widely disapprove of its contents. And they’re taking every opportunity to highlight the document in the final stretch of the campaign.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), head of the Democratic Caucus, both used press briefings this week to link Project 2025 to Trump and downballot Republicans.
And DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has also been active in the pushback campaign. Her office has compiled a document noting the similarities between policies promoted by Project 2025 and provisions being pushed by House Republicans as part of the current debate over government spending.
“We delineated what is in appropriations, which mirrors what’s in Trump’s Project 2025,” she said. “That’s a major, major transformation in services to the American people.”
That side-by-side comparison has given Democrats ammunition as they head home for the final push toward Election Day.
“We can see the direct tie to Project 2025, how they’re already trying to implement portions of it,” said Barragán, who seemed pleasantly surprised that an obscure policy document is resonating outside of Washington.
“In these battleground states, the people who are showing up that are really activists, they’ll say, ‘I’ve heard about Project 2025, it sounds horrible,’” she said.
“If somebody who’s not in the Beltway tells you about Project 2025, and even two or three bad things from it, then it’s a success, because it’s getting through to people.”