LA CROSSE, Wis. — Vice President J.D. Vance on Thursday touted President Trump’s massive tax cut, immigration enforcement and spending package at a steel-fabricating plant in this key battleground state for Republicans in the 2026 midterms.
The vice president touted specific measures in the Big Beautiful Bill, such as no taxes on overtime or tips and extended the tax cuts enacted under Mr. Trump’s first term.
“What the ’working families tax cut’ did is very simple,” Mr. Vance told the audience. “It lets you keep more money in your pocket. It rewarded you for building a business or working at a business right here in the United States of America.”
He said the new law “makes it easier for you to take home more of your hard-earned pay and it makes it easier if you’re an American manufacturer and American business to build your facility or expand your facility right here in the United States of America.”
Mr. Vance spoke at Mid-City Steel, LLC, a facility that the vice president says will benefit under the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. His remarks were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to rebrand the legislation, which Mr. Trump signed into law last month but is polling poorly with Americans.
Mr. Vance avoided using the name Big Beautiful Bill, which is its official title. Instead, he referred to it as the “Working Families Tax Cut.”
Earlier this month in Georgia, Mr. Vance referred to the domestic spending package as the Big Beautiful Bill. He has recently dropped the moniker, referring to it only as the Working Families Tax Cut during stops in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The vice president also touted the money allocated under the bill to fight drug cartels, as well as to curb illegal immigration. He noted that it removes millions of illegal immigrants from federal healthcare benefits.
Mr. Vance said the bill preserves “the benefits you paid into for your entire lives” and makes sure “those benefits only go to our fellow American citizens and not the people who want to go back to their home country because they are here in this country illegally.”
As the 2026 midterms approach, Mr. Vance has been tasked with promoting the law as a boon for manufacturing and rustbelt workers who hold the key to Republicans keeping control of the House and Senate.
Mr. Trump has acknowledged the challenge his party faces in selling the legislation, which includes all of his domestic priorities. On Tuesday, the president said he wasn’t going to use its name anymore, even though he came up with the name “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“I’m not going to use the term great, big, beautiful – that was good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s really about,” Mr. Trump said during his Cabinet meeting.
The White House is betting that Mr. Vance, who grew up in the rust belt of Ohio, can sell the law to working-class, midwestern voters. Mr. Vance is the presumptive favorite for the 2028 GOP nomination and, since August, has visited the swing states of Ohio, Georgia and Pennsylvania as part of the effort to rebrand the legislation.
An August poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Council found that 49% of Americans oppose the tax and spending law, compared to just 29% who support it. A majority of respondents said the measure will increase the deficit, hurt low-income Americans and benefit the wealthy. Other polls found similar responses.
The White House has pushed back on the polling, saying its internal polls have found many specific provisions within the law are highly popular.
Democrats, meanwhile, have seized on the middling support, hammering the law as a boon for the rich while leaving middle-class workers behind. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill could result in 12 million more Americans becoming uninsured over the next decade and nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.
Ahead of Mr. Vance’s visit, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, said the law will cost his state $284 million over its implementation, including a loss of $70 million to local Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients.
The vice president is no stranger to La Crosse, last visiting the western Wisconsin city one day before the 2024 election to make his final case to voters. Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance won the state by less than one percentage point.
