House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) is saying out loud what House Republicans have been grumbling about for much of the year: They're fed up with the Senate.

💣 Why it matters: You won't ever hear Speaker Mike Johnson or Majority Leader Steve Scalise talk about their Senate counterparts like this.

• "There are no Democrats. There are no Republicans. They are just senators," Emmer told donors last week at a closed-door fundraiser for Rep. Mark Harris (R-N.C.). We were in attendance.
• Emmer said Senate Majority Leader John Thune "is doing the job that he thinks he's supposed to do. There's a certain fraternity sorority that is the U.S. Senate."

🚮 The intrigue: Emmer had a blunt message for senators who repeatedly say they can't pass House GOP priorities: "Don't just keep telling me 'Don't have the votes. Don't have the votes.' You suck."

• Emmer said he once thought as a House member that he should stay out of the filibuster debate.
• Now, he thinks his colleagues should "get rid of the darn filibuster."
• A Senate GOP aide retorted that what would "suck" would be losing the majority and that Republicans should be targeting Democrats instead of attacking their own side.

🤬 Zoom in: Emmer's comments are the most critical yet from a House GOP leader, but sum up the mood inside the conference.

• More than a dozen Republicans paralyzed the House floor this summer in an effort to force Senate action on the SAVE America Act, the GOP's signature election bill that's become a major source of tension between the two chambers.
• "We're frustrated with the Senate," Emmer told us in an interview after the fundraiser.
• House Republicans put their votes "up on the board," Emmer argued, while senators "try to avoid" taking tough votes.

☑️ The big picture: House GOP leaders often say they've "done their job" when asked about unfinished business.

• There's a clear implication in that phrase: The Senate hasn't.
• Johnson has pointed to the backlog across the Capitol — including when he defended sending the House home early last month by noting that hundreds of House-passed bills were awaiting Senate action.
• The speaker blames Democrats for that, but his complaints have put the spotlight on Senate GOP leadership.

🔜 Between the lines: Congressional Republicans spent much of the summer on completely different wavelengths over reconciliation 3.0, which doesn't require any Democratic votes.

• Johnson pushed the Senate to take up the House's reconciliation framework, declaring in July that the Senate would pass it before leaving for August recess.
• "That'd be news to me," Thune said at the time about Johnson's floated timeline. The Senate left town without any action on reconciliation 3.0.
• "They can say all day long, you know, 'It's going to be hard.' Everything's hard. Give me a lecture about how hard things are. That's what I do every day. They've got to figure out a way to get it done," Scalise told us of his colleagues in the Senate in July.

🧱 The bottom line: Emmer stopped short of saying Senate Republicans have been a bigger obstacle to the GOP agenda than Democrats.

• But he said two things frustrate lawmakers in the House when it comes to Senate Republicans: 1) They don't say what changes would get them to yes; and 2) they don't put themselves on the record when the answer is no.
• "Put your money where your mouth is. Put your vote up on the board, and let's see where you really are," Emmer told us.

— Kate Santaliz

House GOP leaders are now openly acknowledging that their mid-decade redistricting push didn't work out as well as they'd hoped.

Why it matters: Redistricting still gave Republicans an edge, just smaller than they'd once thought.

• "We're not gonna win all 13 of those redistricted seats. That's correct. We're not," Emmer told us last week.
• Emmer echoed House Republican Conference chair Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), who told us last month that Republicans were unlikely to sweep all 13.

Zoom in: Emmer said he'd be "surprised" if Republicans sweep all five newly drawn seats in Texas and "shocked" if they win all four in Florida.

• But he said Republicans are certain to pick up newly drawn seats in Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.
• Emmer told donors at the fundraiser for Rep. Harris that Republicans could also offset losses with pickups in Maine and potentially North Carolina, Ohio, New Mexico and Washington.
• Even assuming Republicans lose five seats because of redistricting in California and Utah, pickups elsewhere give the party a path to come out ahead, Emmer told donors.

State of play: The Cook Political Report now projects Republicans will net around four seats from redistricting alone, down from the double-digit gains Republicans once hoped to squeeze from new maps.

• Democrats' maps in California and Utah offset the GOP gains, and some newly drawn Republican pickup opportunities have become more competitive than expected.

The bottom line: Democrats need to net just three seats to win the House, and the broader battlefield is moving in their direction.

• Cook shifted 15 House races toward Democrats last month, while Sabato's Crystal Ball moved 11 races toward Democrats days later.
• Many of the most competitive races are now in districts President Trump carried in 2024.

— Kate Santaliz