Back in March, when Democrats were still working to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan into law, 65% of voters across partisan lines supported increasing the child tax credit, according to polling from the progressive think tank Center for American Progress.

Democrats and Democrats alone managed to deliver that child tax credit to American families, many of whom will start receiving a monthly payment of up to $300 around mid-July. Democrats tucked the popular expansion of $300 per month for each child under five and $250 per month for each child over five into the American Rescue Plan that every single congressional Republican in the House and Senate voted against. 

Now that the payment is days away from hitting Americans’ bank accounts for the first time, Democrats appear to be rolling out a coordinated campaign to let voters know who made it possible.

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Certainly not Republicans, as Rep. Ted Lieu of California noted in a Monday tweet celebrating the rollout of the child tax credit refund checks. “This Thursday most American families with children will start receiving tax refund checks. Democrats are building back better #ForthePeople,” Lieu wrote. “Every Republican in Congress voted against lowering taxes for American families with children.”

Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia penned an op-ed in the July 11 Richmond Times-Dispatch touting the country’s economic recovery due to the relief package, but also acknowledging the extra burden child care has continued to place on families before, during, and after the pandemic.

“Prior to the pandemic, infant care in Virginia was more expensive than in-state tuition at a public university,” Spanberger wrote. But soon, she said, central Virginia families would begin receiving the yearly payments of up to $3,600 per child in monthly increments. “Amazingly, there is little to no effort required for most families to start benefiting from these payments,” she added, noting that the credit is also fully refundable, so the entire amount can be paid out even if a family owes less in taxes than the amount of the credit.

Spanberger’s op-ed was basically a huge Public Service Announcement, hailing the payments as a “smart investment in our region’s economic security and the opportunities available to our region’s children.”

Within the last week, stories on the tax credit have made local newspapers in places ranging from Illinois and New Hampshire to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

At a press conference in New York last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer noted, “what we’re so proud of, is that it takes half the kids in New York out of poverty.” Researchers at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy have estimated the monthly payments would reduce child poverty in the nation from 14% to about 7.5%. Democrats hope to make the expansion permanent in the Democrats-only jobs and families package they have been negotiating alongside the bipartisan infrastructure bill. 

“These payments represent the largest anti-poverty program in a generation,” offered Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, speaking at the same press event.

This popular policy that Democrats coalesced around as Republicans worked to kill the entire rescue package is exactly the type of ownership Democrats need to be taking over the relief they delivered to the American people. Republicans have already been taking credit for portions of the relief package they voted against en masse, and some polling suggests many voters remain in the dark about the Biden agenda and Democratic successes to date.

The time to start framing the debate in voters’ minds is now—Democrats have been delivering for the country, Republicans are a menace to it.