WASHINGTON — Republicans are selling the massive $1.5 trillion tax revamp approved Wednesday as just the kind of monumental accomplishment a country frustrated by Congress’ dysfunction has craved.

There’s just one problem: Many Americans hate the bill.

Poll after poll shows that taxpayers give the overhaul lower ratings than even some tax hikes of years past. Many don't like that corporations receive the lion's share of the relief. And lots of them feel like they won't personally benefit from the far-reaching changes.

Never mind that the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center — a group Republicans often tag as biased against them —projects that 4 out of 5 Americans will see a tax cut next year.

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“We’ve been busy working on a tax cut bill,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, said this week on Fox Business Network, while also blaming the “fake news” media for shaping public sentiment. “And the Democrats have been busy demonizing it.”

Whether Republicans can reverse the feeling could be decisive in the first real campaign season of the Trump era, one in which the party’s narrow majorities are already fraught with danger.

The GOP took a shocking hit this month when a Democrat won a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama for the first time in 25 years. Many traditional Republican strongholds, including some in Texas, could face real challenges in November that are unlike anything seen in years.

And both parties see the tax legislation as their electoral salve.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for instance, argued that beefier paychecks will prove that Democrats are “claiming, wildly, falsely, that somehow your taxes are going to go up.” But El Paso Rep. Beto O’Rourke, his Democratic challenger, said the tax bill must be considered in a broader context.

“For many Texans, whatever savings they were hoping to get are going to be eaten up by a $1,700 increase in your premiums on your health insurance or on other individual deductions not being there,” said O’Rourke, who is leaving the House to run for the Senate.

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, addresses a town hall at Plano High School on Nov. 9. (Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer)

Wednesday was a long time coming for the GOP.

The Senate approved the tax bill early in the morning. The House gave the legislation final passage around lunchtime after a procedural hiccup forced them to re-vote. And President Donald Trump celebrated with lawmakers at the White House in the early afternoon.

The legislation, in broad strokes, cuts tax rates for both businesses and individuals. Most of the provisions will go into effect in January, and many taxpayers will see bigger pay stubs in February thanks to reduced tax withholding.

“If we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

But it’s not the tax bill Republicans envisioned many months ago. And that might help explain some of the public’s aversion.

The GOP had pitched a revamp that would get rid of longstanding carve-outs, streamlining the code so that nearly all Americans could file their returns on a postcard. While most taxpayers will indeed make use of an expanded standard deduction, the final product is not so simple.

“The postcard still remains,” said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands. “Are there a few more items on it? Sure. But that was the process we wanted.”

That process, however, included the GOP giving up some revenue-raising ideas amid pushback. Those decisions constrained Republicans’ options. And then further political resistance forced the GOP to end up keeping many of the breaks they had once hoped to eliminate.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, heads to a vote on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. (Tom Brenner / The New York Times)

That lurching sprint, while resulting in immediate tax cuts, made it difficult for taxpayers to determine their fate. The complexity only increased as Republicans added provisions like a repeal of Obamacare's individual mandate.

And the bill’s opponents, looking long term, worked to fill in the void.

“Knowing that this is not free and that it has to be paid back at a cost of $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion and that it will be reflected in your tax bills or your kid’s tax bill, people understand that,” O’Rourke said.

Democrats point out that the individual cuts expire after eight years. GOP officials counter that a future Congress will extend them. Democrats hammer that the deficit hit will result in cuts to Medicare and other programs. Republicans say those fears are unfounded.

And Democrats zero in on the fact that corporations received the biggest win, thanks to a permanent rate cut to 21 percent from 35 percent.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson speaks at an Economic Club of New York luncheon Nov. 29. The Dallas-based company announced Wednesday that once the tax code overhaul was signed into law, it would pay a special $1,000 bonus to more than 200,000 AT&T U.S. employees. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas — who’s attracted several challengers — with a digital ad campaign that says he’s “stuffing the stockings of wealthy corporations while leaving nothing but a lump of coal for the middle class.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer even made the issue a centerpiece of his closing case on the Senate floor, torching Dallas-based AT&T along the way. He said the telecom giant had paid an effective tax rate of 8 percent over the last 10 years while cutting 80,000 jobs.

“Let’s give them more money while hurting the middle class?” he said. “It makes no sense.”

AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris said Schumer cited a “flawed study” that cherry-picked data that “wildly mischaracterizes our effective tax rate.” He said the company’s tax rate was much higher — thanks, in part, to some $60 billion in deferred taxes AT&T must pay in the future.

And he reiterated a pledge that the company has made throughout the tax debate.

"We've committed to invest an additional $1 billion in the United States next year if the tax bill is signed into law by the president," said Balmoris, whose company announced Wednesday that it would give a $1,000 bonus to more than 200,000 employees once the tax bill becomes law.

Republicans say that trickle-down effect from the corporate world is critical, even though many economists are skeptical.

“People back home will understand that this is the direction we’re going to go — to trust the free enterprise system,” Sessions said. “It’s the winner. Not any company. Not any group of people. Not the top 1 or 10 or 15 percent.”

And GOPers said the popularity of the tax bill will ultimately come down to pocketbook math.

Cruz said Americans will soon look at their pay stubs and ask, “Gosh, why did 48 Democrats in the Senate all tell me something that was false?” And Gohmert predicted that Democrats will “want to talk about something else besides the tax plan before the November election.”

“Because it is going to be a good thing for America,” he said.