Representative Steve Israel (N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has a tough job ahead: to help Democrats win back the House in 2014. So, naturally, he’s delighted that a collection of business groups, coordinating with President Obama and the Senate Gang of Eight, are targeting 100 or so House Republicans on immigration over the August recess.

“We will hold Republicans accountable if they continue to obstruct progress on immigration,” he tells me, adding that the combined power of business, labor, and popular opinion means that if “you don’t listen, it will be an issue.” Democratic efforts will be formidable, but don’t count out the opponents of the Senate immigration bill, who have their own game plan, including focusing attention on Speaker John Boehner.

Sheriff Sam Page of Rockingham County, N.C., has been leading a nationwide effort to enlist local sheriffs to lobby their local House members against the Senate bill, and in August the show could go on the road and into Boehner’s Ohio district, where Page has already been in talks with local sheriffs’ offices.

Referring to Boehner’s promise to abide by the Hastert rule (by which a majority of the majority party must support a bill before it can be brought to the floor for a vote), Page said he “would just encourage Speaker Boehner to remain strong” and stick with the “SAFE Act,” an enforcement-only bill that the House Judiciary Committee recently supported.

Representative Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a freshman who is rising to prominence through the immigration fight, is preparing to launch an August blitz on the issue, too. And the usual coalition of outside groups — including the Heritage Foundation, NumbersUSA, the Eagle Forum, and the Tea Party Patriots — are all planning their own recess efforts to sway the tide against amnesty.  

Opponents of the Senate bill are vastly outgunned in terms of money and manpower, but the issue of immigration tends to pit an elite consensus against the views of average Americans, which helps opponents tap into popular sentiment.

The business groups also have something of a credibility problem among House Republicans, one that has been exacerbated, for example, by a series of factual errors in ads funded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that promote the Gang of Eight bill.

“Agricultural people back home say you ought to go for the Senate bill because these are good families who want to become citizens,” says Representative Dennis Ross of Florida. “What they are really saying is that ‘we just need to have a stable labor force and if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.’ I’m sure it will have some impact, but I think we’re still going to continue to do it piecemeal [in the House].”

“The fact that the Senate bill’s backers are teaming up with the business lobby to target House members demonstrates yet again what Senator Sessions has been saying: The corporations behind the comprehensive overhaul believe — correctly — that a huge spike in low-skill immigration will significantly reduce wages,” says Stephen Miller, a spokesman for Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Over the recess, Sessions intends to hammer a message about the negative impact of more immigration on the wages of low-skilled workers.