“The one issue that the GOP will have trouble dealing with is the 65% wanting a minimum wage increase.”
Why not let the states deal with it then rather than at the federal level? Why should Arkansas have the same minimum wage as New York? If those states want it, then their people have spoken. Federal minimum wage is a major democrat issue - they ran on in 2014, they lost in big numbers. So why worry now - the next election is 2 years away. There are other more pressing issues.
“Why not let the states deal with it then rather than at the federal level?”
Because Union wages are linked to minimum wage at the federal level. In other words- hire up mob of knuckle dragging union goons to stomp their fat butts around town bellowing about burger flippers deserving fifteen bucks an hour. They don’t give a crap about burger flippers. They know if they can bully enough morons into passing a federal minimum wage hike, their already obscenely inflated union wages will climb in kind.