About 49.3 percent of the tax returns filed in the district prior to the law change claimed the SALT deduction, according to data from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Roskam’s Democratic opponent, Sean Casten repeatedly campaigned on eliminating the SALT cap. “The fact that nearly half of his own constituents claim this deduction didn’t prevent Peter Roskam from making SALT a target,” Casten said in a white paper he published about tax policy.

Over the course of the campaign, Roskam softened his support for the SALT cap, saying it should be indexed to inflation.

Paulsen’s Steadfast Support

For Paulsen, his suburban Twin Cities district is the wealthiest in Minnesota, and one of the hardest hit by the SALT changes.

His Democratic opponent, Dean Phillips, criticized Paulsen’s steadfast support for the tax law.

Paulsen, as the chairman of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, has been responsible for touting the tax law’s success, even as public support has waned and many economists say it’s too early to definitely say the law is working. That gave Phillips an opening to paint Paulsen as a GOP follower that wouldn’t use his position to advocate for Minnesotans.

Democrats, particularly those from high-tax Northeastern states, have said they want to use their new majority to increase or fully repeal the cap on the SALT deduction -- a pricey proposition. Removing the SALT cap would cost about $673 billion over a decade, according to estimates from the Tax Foundation. That would require, say, raising the corporate tax rate nearly four percentage points -- to 25 percent -- to offset the cost.

Repealing or increasing the cap on the SALT deduction is a high priority for those who represent districts in high-tax states, such as Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey and John Larson of Connecticut. Outside of those high-tax areas, it’s less of a concern because most voters have SALT bills under the threshold.

Any substantive change to the SALT cap would likely need to come from Congress. The Internal Revenue Service issued regulations earlier this year invalidating attempts in high-tax states to create charitable contribution programs as a workaround to the $10,000 contribution limit. New York and Connecticut also have other tactics to reduce SALT liabilities, but the IRS could still challenge those.