Koch-Backed Groups Are Selling Trump’s Tax Cuts Door-to-Door Ahead of the Midterms

Landon Porter has barely uttered the words “tax reform” before the door slams in his face. He stands on the front steps of the colonial-style home for a second. Then he checks his smartphone, finds the next address, and knocks on another door in this middle-class neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Porter, 25, is the grass-roots director of the Indiana branch of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a conservative public-advocacy group that’s part of the political network built and partly financed by billionaires Charles and David Koch. Although he makes no mention of the Koch brothers in his pitch, Porter’s door-knocking campaign is part of a $20 million effort by Koch-affiliated groups to boost support for the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts Congress approved last year. Republicans have so far struggled to make the party’s signature achievement this cycle a winning campaign issue. Only 39 percent of respondents viewed the tax law favorably in an April Gallup poll.