This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s partnership with NOTUS, a nonpartisan news organization that covers government and politics with the fresh eyes of early career journalists and the expertise of veteran reporters.
President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign the housing bill passed by Congress has turned into a complicated political question for Republicans: How do you campaign on a legislative win that was rejected by the head of your party?
The legislation, which is the most significant housing package to come out of Congress in more than three decades and represents one of the biggest legislative victories of the year for Republicans, became law this month despite the president’s inaction. It’s making for some hard conversations with the voters, who are very attuned to the cost of living.
“[Housing is] one of the number one asks I have in my district,” Rep. Zach Nunn (R- Iowa) told NOTUS of issues constituents asked Congress to work on. “If the president didn’t want to sign it, that’s over to the president.”
“I’m glad that we stood firm and we had a veto-proof majority. And sometimes Republicans have to stand up to the president and say, ‘This is what our districts need.’”
The president endorsed several versions of the bill, including its final form. But he ultimately refused to sign it, saying instead that the Save America Act was the administration’s top priority and should be Congress’ too.
“I don’t speak for the president,” Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R- Pennsylvania), who represents a swing district that could help determine control of the House next year, told NOTUS when asked whether he believed voters would credit Republicans for the policy despite Trump’s calling the bill “a big yawn” relative to election security.
“I know my voters, my constituents. My electors are super excited about the package,” Bresnahan said.
The housing bill is aimed at fast-tracking housing development across the nation by removing some environmental and construction review standards and expanding how existing federal programs administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development use funds for construction. It also limits the number of single-family homes institutional investors can own.
Every step of passing the bill was a headache for Republicans. It got caught up in a monthslong standoff between the House and Senate. Some Republicans griped about the outsize role Democrats took in negotiating the package, which in the end passed with broad bipartisan support. And Trump oscillated in his support for at least one of the provisions in the bill.
Now, the careful dance Republicans have to do around it on the campaign trail has become another in a long line of headaches, when they’d widely expected an easy-to-sell legislative feat.
“Every House Republican can claim that they fought to have this bill passed because they voted for it, and so you know they’re the ones running, not President Trump,” a Republican operative told NOTUS, adding that the package is not the only affordability policy Republicans should message on. “You could talk about the policy. You don’t have to talk about how it became law.”
Some Republicans running for reelection are doing exactly that.
Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership — a conservative nonprofit that nearly a hundred sitting lawmakers are part of — told NOTUS that Republicans’ messaging on the package should be “localized” and that lawmakers should keep talking about “the fact that they voted, they passed the bill, and it became law.”
“The members of Main Street are back in their districts talking about the importance of this legislation and how it affects your day-to-day life. They’re not mentioning what the president said,” Chamberlain said.
Both Republican operatives told NOTUS that they believed people outside of D.C. are not aware of the president’s comments or his refusal to sign the bill.
Asked about Republican messaging on the legislation and Trump’s refusal to sign it, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) said the bill was a “huge” bipartisan policy win “on probably the most important aspect of affordability, which is housing.”
Pressed about the president’s role, Fitzpatrick — who holds another key seat the Republicans are trying to hold on to in order to keep the majority — said the president’s opinions were “his.”
“Overwhelming numbers of Democrats, Republicans in the House and Senate voted for it. Everybody’s got to be accountable for our actions,” Fitzpatrick said.
The White House did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.
Housing is a key part of the affordability conversation both parties say they want to address. The U.S. is currently facing a shortage of more than 5 million homes, according to Pew Research Center. A Gallup poll conducted in May found that only 25% of non-homeowners believe they will be able to buy a home in the next five years — the lowest percentage in more than a decade.
In the fight for control of the lower chamber, Democrats have also been campaigning on the bill. The day the president canceled the signing ceremony, more than 20 Democratic lawmakers held a rally outside the Capitol to demand the president to sign the legislation and accused him of holding it hostage.
Now, vulnerable House Republicans are downplaying that the bill became law without Trump’s signature.
“I’m less worried about the process and more about the actual specifics of the bill,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York), who is running in a district won by former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, told NOTUS. He touted the bill as a Republican-led effort.
Some Republicans are even choosing not to speak about the package at all.
When asked about the bill and the president, Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colorado) said: “Oh, well, let’s back up even before that. Let’s go back to the Working Families Tax Cut.”