Press

Democrats once hailed Build Back Better as the policy that could help them win the midterms.

But as even the possibility of a scaled-back version of President Biden’s signature legislation fizzles in the 50-50 Senate, some are wondering if the president will have anything comparable to campaign on as the election season inches closer. 

ROKK Co-founding Partner Rodell Mollineau, shares his take on the messaging for the upcoming elections, and just how much Democrats have accomplished, in this article on The Hill.

Gas, airfares, Uber rides, even chicken wings, you name it, these days, we’re all paying a whole lot more for it. But how long will Americans put up with it? 

And what about investors? The S&P 500 briefly dipping into bear market territory, although we didn’t close here today. 

ROKK Partner Kristen Hawn joins Charles Payne on Your World to talk about the upcoming midterm elections, and the role inflation is playing in voter sentiment in this episode on Fox News.

There is a new issue that business leaders are wrestling with: figuring out their new role in society as ushers of profit and social fairness. When social issues arise that make groups feel marginalized or under attack, employees want their organization to stand up for them. But standing up sometimes means incurring the wrath of investors and community stakeholders. And CEOs, who consumers want to hear from most (vs. a more generic response from the company as a whole) are in the middle.

Democratic strategist and ROKK Co-founding Partner Rodell Mollineau, Republican strategist and ROKK Co-founding Partner Ron Bonjean and Impact ROI CEO and ROKK Senior Advisor Steve Rochlin weigh in on how the CEO of Disney, Bob Chapek, handled the company’s recent response to LGBTQIA+ legislation as a case study for these issues as social threats to organizations and how they can be anticipated and managed successfully. Read the article here.

American Conservation Coalition VP of government affairs Quill Robinson and former Blue Dog Coalition communications director and current ROKK Solutions Partner Kristen Hawn weigh in on the federal mask mandate getting overturned. Watch the segment here.

Democrats on Capitol Hill, fearing a deluge of migrants at the southern border this summer, are pressuring President Biden to back off his decision to lift the Trump-era Title 42 order next month. Senior Vice President John LaBombard discusses why vulnerable Democrats, especially those up for re-election in the 2022 Midterm elections, are scrambling to distance themselves from Biden’s Title 42 decision and demanding the administration delay action until it has a plan for dealing with a summer migrant surge. Read the article here.

In conversations with more than a dozen people involved with the Build Back Better legislation, conflicting theories emerged about who is responsible for President Joe Biden’s lost legislative agenda. The enduring tension looms over quiet discussions between the White House and congressional Democrats on a dramatically scaled-back bill, with finger-pointing about who’s to blame for the failure of the larger bill amid uncertainty about what, if anything, might actually pass ahead of November’s midterm elections. Senior Vice President John LaBombard discusses the risks involved for Democrats in the mismatch between “sky-high” expectations and narrow margins. Read the article here.

Democrats say they’ve done a lousy job at highlighting their accomplishments in a year plus of unified power in Washington, and are blaming this on the possibility they will suffer major losses in November’s midterm elections.  Co-founding Partner Rodell Mollineau shares his perspective in this article from The Hill. Read the article here.

Republicans are pouncing on the Biden administration’s recent decision to scrap a Trump-era pandemic border policy, launching a multi-pronged attack against Democrats in Congress, in the courts and on the campaign trail. Republicans’ national campaign arms, as part of their strategy to take back the House and Senate in November’s midterms, have signaled a new push to highlight the policy in their outreach to voters, particularly in swing states and districts near the U.S.-Mexico border. Senior Vice President John LaBombard discusses how the lack of policy details is causing big political challenges for the Democratic party. Read the article here.

The Back Booth, a weekend edition of The D.C. Brief, is TIME’s politics newsletter. Each week it hosts a conversation between political professionals on the right and the left, pulling back the curtain on the conversations taking place in Washington when the tape stops rolling. This week Partner Kristen Hawn sat down with journalist Philip Elliott and Republican consultant Matt Beynon. Read the piece here.

Senate Democrats are bracing for a surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in the wake of President Biden’s decision to rescind Title 42, a key restriction, creating yet another political headwind for Democratic candidates ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. ROKK Senior Vice President, a former aide to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, John LaBombard shares his thoughts on why vulnerable and centrist Democrats are scrambling to distance themselves from President Biden’s decision-read the article here.