Democrats plot messaging blitz ahead of Obamacare hikes

In Wisconsin, Democrats are launching nearly 400 canvassing events this weekend focused on health care. A major liberal advocacy group, Protect Our Care, will push a six-figure digital campaign. Top Democratic governors, including Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Laura Kelly of Kansas, are holding press calls to “to slam D.C. Republicans for causing Americans’ health care premiums to skyrocket.”

It adds up to a campaign of doomsday messaging aimed at voters’ concerns about health care as premium spikes are due to arrive.

“November 1st is a health care cliff for the American people, and I think it's also a political cliff for Republicans,” said Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care, a liberal nonprofit that has hosted a dozen town halls with House Democrats throughout the country on the impending premium increases. “More and more people are paying attention to it.”

In the coming days, Democrats will launch ad buys, hold town halls and convene media appearances to highlight the Nov. 1 date when Americans must choose to purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace with higher premiums or forgo it altogether, an attempt to ensure Republicans shoulder the blame for rising health care costs.

Some of the tactics, like the DNC holding a call with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are routine. But others are more national in scope, including Protect Our Care is deploying a digital search advertising campaign that targets people who are researching their ACA health care plans online with ads blaming Republicans. Those ads will run in House districts held by vulnerable Republicans in Arizona, Iowa, New York and Pennsylvania, among other places.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also has an upcoming ad scheduled to run in 35 competitive House districts starting this weekend. The four-figure digital buy shows Speaker Mike Johnson on vacation — a reference to the House being in recess for six weeks amid the looming insurance hikes.

In the days leading up to Nov. 1, Democratic governors have described how the hikes could devastate Americans. On Monday, outgoing Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers released the 2026 plan outlining rates for the state’s individual marketplace, which showed that many premiums for individuals and families will double. Some seniors will face an increase of more than $30,000 per year. Nationally, on average, out-of-pocket premium payments for subsidized ACA enrollees will be 114 percent higher without the tax credits, according to KFF, a health care research group.

“Republicans’ reckless decisions are causing prices on everything to go up,” Evers said in a statement. “Republicans need to end this chaos and stop working to make healthcare more expensive. It’s that simple.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill have refused to engage in health care negotiations with Democrats until the government reopens, and many within the GOP are resistant to extending the tax credits at all. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he would meet “soon” with Democrats to discuss an appropriations agreement, which would amount to the most high-level meeting to end the shutdown that will soon enter its second month.

In Virginia and New Jersey, where voters will cast ballots next week in off-year bellwether elections, the Democratic candidates for governor have made combating rising costs central to their campaigns — tying that message to the looming ACA hikes. It's an early road test of a message the party will hammer leading up to the midterms: President Donald Trump and Republicans in Washington have made life more expensive.

Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, has highlighted how out-of-pocket costs could be two to more than five times higher for families who purchase insurance through the ACA exchange, and those hikes could force thousands of people to go uninsured. Spanberger this week toured a rural hospital in southwest Virginia that stands to feel the effects of the Trump administration’s tax law that slashes Medicaid.

In Wisconsin, a battleground state that backed Trump by under 1 point last year, Democrats are launching hundreds of canvassing operations focused on subsidy cuts, and are planning messaging billboards as well. This weekend, as Wisconsinites see tangible increases in their premiums, Democratic Party Chair Devin Remiker said, “the objective reality is going to hit people in a way that you can't talking point your way out of, if you're the Republican Party.”

Wisconsin Republicans aren’t planning to spend money in response, however. State GOP Chair Brian Schimming says Democrats are going to hang themselves by tying the subsidy cuts to the shutdown.

“I think they're putting a massive, massive bet on not just the shutdown, but on getting people to think that the shutdown is … Republicans’ fault,” he said.

Natalie Fertig contributed to this report.