Grand Old Populists: Gop Lawmakers Target Big Business

On the television airwaves in central Arkansas, Republican House Financial Services Chair French Hill is touting his efforts to “keep Wall Street from buying up our neighborhoods.” In Michigan, GOP Senate hopeful Mike Rogers is vowing to “take on Big pharma” companies that “are ripping American families off.” And in northeast Iowa, an ad boosting Republican House candidate Joe Mitchell declares that he “will be the only Republican refusing corporate PAC money” in Washington.

It’s a flashing warning sign for corporate America: On the right — and not just the far right — it is increasingly becoming in vogue to bash big business.

Major corporations have generally counted Republicans as their most reliable allies in Washington, where GOP lawmakers and regulators push for looser regulations and lower taxes. But the ascendancy of Donald Trump has ushered in a new era of skepticism toward multinational corporations. And many Republicans are dialing up their rhetoric on the campaign trail ahead of the 2026 midterms.

That presents a major risk for big financial services firms, health insurance companies and tech titans, which are the subjects of the hottest rhetoric. With GOP candidates effectively running for office against them around the country, they face an increased peril of a crackdown and of being a high-profile punching bag for Republican presidential hopefuls in 2028.

“There should be a shifting relationship between Republicans and Wall Street for sure,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who has pushed his party to embrace a more populist approach. “I mean, what do those people do for America?”

It’s not that the GOP is entirely abandoning a business-friendly approach. Congressional Republicans’ signature accomplishment in the second Trump administration — a sweeping tax bill that they passed along party lines last year — was cheered on by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And Trump’s agency heads have taken steps to loosen regulations in ways that benefit specific industries, like banking.

And many Republicans still embrace their roots as the party of free markets.

“I see private enterprise as one of the key ingredients of what makes America great,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.). “In my view — and this has been a long-held view — we need to create an environment where businesses can thrive.”

But the heated campaign trail rhetoric highlights the increasingly precarious standing that big businesses have in Washington, as lawmakers see more and more political value in embracing populist rhetoric that casts them as standing up to malign corporate interests.

That trend seems likely to keep building over time, said Rohit Kumar, who served as a top aide to former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and is now at the consulting firm PwC.

“It’s entirely foreseeable that two, three cycles from now, you have a very Trump-influenced Republican elected official class, and their willingness to engage in the sorts of activities that you would have traditionally thought would be the province mostly of House and Senate Democrats starts to become a little more commonplace,” Kumar said.

There are also more immediate risks, which are particularly acute for financial services firms entering 2027. With Democrats well-positioned to take back at least one chamber of Congress, one of the few avenues for lawmaking — which typically requires 60 votes in the Senate — could be bringing together coalitions of enough populist-minded Democrats and Republicans on issues that Trump has backed.

That approach worked earlier this year when Congress passed a major housing affordability bill that included a provision aimed at limiting private equity’s footprint in the single-family market. The language targeting private equity created a rare alliance between the White House, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and populist Republicans. Trump has backed other ideas that could bring together a similar coalition, like capping credit card interest rates and a lightning-rod bill that aims to crack down on swipe fees, the charges that merchants pay to banks and credit card networks when customers make purchases.

Kevin Madden, a longtime GOP communications strategist and senior partner at consulting firm Penta, said that even if there isn’t much bipartisan collaboration to crack down on big businesses, that doesn’t mean corporate America is off the hook. A Congress controlled by Democrats would likely bring with it an aggressive oversight agenda, which could also sweep in large companies.

“Maybe it’s not going to be point-counterpoint” with Republicans defending corporations from Democrats, Madden said. “Instead, it’s who can get tougher on them?”

Madden said companies are “very aware” of this trendline and argued that they can’t afford to just keep their head down but need to actively engage with Washington.

“The risk is that it starts to become part of every policy conversation, whether it’s legislative, political, regulatory, reputational,” he said. “If the political incentives are there for Republicans to go after corporations and business interests, that’s a problem.”

Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican who helped champion the private equity crackdown in the housing bill, said he is “vehemently supportive of businesses that do the right thing.”

“I think the difference is, there’s Republicans that will worship at the altar of corporations. I worship at the altar of working Americans to make sure that they’re getting a fair shot in this country,” Moreno said. “If there’s asshole executives that take advantage of their workers or consumers, they should be punched in the balls.”