GOP state senators in WA go to bat for Trump’s megabill
President Donald Trump is receiving unusually boisterous support for his “Big, Beautiful Bill” from an unexpected source: Republican state senators in Washington.
The Senate Republican Caucus launched a web page rebuking Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson and Democratic lawmakers for “stoking fear” with “false or misleading accusations” about the new law’s overhaul of Medicaid, food assistance, hospital funding and energy policy.
It marks a change for Senate Republicans, and their leadership, who’ve sought to distance themselves from their party’s actions in “the other Washington.”
Since Trump signed the law on July 4, Democrats in Washington have dominated the narrative about it. Ferguson has warned that it’s “difficult to overstate how devastating” the law’s cuts will be for Washingtonians, and that the reductions will “bring our health care system to the brink and harm people in every corner of our state.”
Under a headline, “The Truth,” Senate Republicans deliver an itemized retort to Democrats’ major critiques.
“If we can get over the fearmongering coming from the Democratic majority and the Democratic governor and just look at what it really does for working people across the state of Washington, I think we’re going to be pretty pleased,” Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, said in a podcast released with the site.
This full-throated defense comes as Braun is expected to soon announce a 2026 run against Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District.
Braun acknowledged in an interview that the federal law “creates some challenges” and costs for the state. But, he said, Ferguson and Democratic legislators are overestimating the potential effects, many of which won’t kick in until late next year.
Ferguson did not respond to Braun’s comments, but Brionna Aho, his communications chief, did.
“Sen. Braun is entitled to his opinion, but not his own facts,” she said in an email. “The evidence is overwhelming that the Big, Bad Betrayal Bill will harm thousands of Washingtonians, including Sen. Braun’s own constituents.”
Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett, the Democrats’ lead budget writer, said her Senate GOP colleagues are understating the federal law’s financial hit to the state.
Just to comply with new Medicaid reporting requirements, she said, “We are going to have to spend a significant amount of money in 2026.”
Collateral damage?
Senate Republicans’ embrace of the law carries political risk.
Braun knows Trump is unpopular among Washington’s moderate Republicans and political independents. He angered Trump backers, and a few sitting senators, when his caucus’ political arm recruited and backed candidates in 2024 that were not MAGA acolytes.
This year, Republican candidates looking to unseat Democrats in two bellwether state Senate contests could be tethered to the controversial law and Trump by their opponents – even if they disagree with what Congress approved.
Crystal Fincher, a political consultant, said caucus leaders understand their base is solidly behind the bill, so silence is not an option.
“It is a failed strategy for Republicans to do the duck-and-cover thing,” she said. “Trying to make it a Democrat-Republican thing is the best shot at getting their base to ignore all of the warnings. Strategically, that is all they have.”
But Ben Anderstone, of Progressive Strategies NW, said it won’t be helpful for state Republicans running this year to draw attention to Trump’s signature policies when they’re trying to win over moderates and non-MAGA voters in the November general election.
“It is a brave gambit,” he said.
‘A lot of pain’
Ferguson blasted the Republican-backed law in three July 3 news releases.
He’s put out six statements on this legislation alone since May 20, when he signed the new two-year state budget and tax hikes needed to balance it.
“This bill is anything but beautiful for Washington,” he said in one release denouncing the rollback of clean energy tax credits.
In another, he said it “takes food from our most vulnerable Washingtonians to give tax breaks to the ultrawealthy.”
According to Ferguson’s office, 250,000 people stand to lose Medicaid coverage and another 150,000 won’t be able to afford insurance on the health care exchange.
Over the next 10 years, Washington could lose one-fifth of the federal dollars it receives to run Apple Health, the state’s Medicaid program, amounting to $3 billion to $5 billion per year, according to the nonpartisan health research group KFF.
Ferguson has said reductions in Medicaid funding of that magnitude would likely accelerate rural hospital closures and reduce access to care for rural residents.
Braun and Sen. Ron Muzzall, R-Oak Harbor, say that while Ferguson and others are complaining about the federal law, they’re overlooking hospital closures and service cuts that are the result of state policy enacted by Democrats.
Muzzall, the lead Republican on the Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee, pointed to new and higher taxes on doctors, staffing services and other parts of the health care system.
And he flagged “significant cuts” to programs serving people on Medicaid, including more than $8 million for access to reproductive care and $50 million to pediatric dentistry.
“We’ve heard a lot about the federal actions. We’ve heard nothing of the impact our state is having on the health care system,” Muzzall said. “There’s a lot of pain that came out of the legislative session.”