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Darline Graham

South Carolina Senate Race Razor Close At Republicans Sour On Darline

South Carolina’s Senate contest is a real race this year, with Republicans spending millions trying to save the seat long held by the late GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham. And President Donald Trump is directly to blame for the fact that Republicans are sweating out in a state he carried by roughly 18 percentage points two years ago.

Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran have spiked fuel and fertilizer prices have been devastating to the agricultural industry, which happens to be the biggest industry in the Palmetto State. The rising struggles in rural America have led to a backlash from Republican voters, many of whom are threatening to stay home or even vote for Democrats this year.

But it’s also because Trump personally got involved in trying to choose Graham’s successor.

Trump settled on replacing his late friend with Graham’s sister, Darline Nardone Graham. He effectively had her appointed her the seat, then endorsed her special primary bid, despite the fact that her only qualification for the job was sharing DNA with the seat’s former occupant.

Since ascending to the Senate and running a campaign for a full term, Darline Graham has proven herself to be as wholly unqualified as people feared. She has no grasp of the important issues she is tasked with legislating. And she has no political talents, top among them the ability to fundraise, which Graham has proven herself incapable of doing.

Now, even some dyed-in-the-wool Republicans are deeply skeptical of her.

“The voters in South Carolina are not buying the argument that everyone has to ‘settle’ for a candidate that has been propped up by special interest groups and a Republican president spending millions of dollars spreading false narratives about why Darline Graham is qualified to be elected to the U.S. Senate for the next six years!!” Rep. Ralph Norman, the South Carolina Republican who narrowly lost to Graham in the special Senate primary, told CNN’s Manu Raju via text message on Tuesday.

“This election is about attempts to ‘force’ a candidate on the voters of S.C. And regardless of the outcome, it didn’t have to be this way as the great people living in South Carolina deserve ‘better!’ Bottom line!! Elections have consequences!!” Norman added.

Voters like Norman are why Republicans have had to dump millions into the race in the waning weeks of the cycle, only to have Graham barely leading in polls. Graham is up over her Democratic opponent, Annie Andrews, by just 1 point on average, 46 percent to 45 percent.

Other Republicans are coming out to support Andrews’ bid, too. Former Republican Gov. David Beasley cut an ad backing Andrews over Graham.

The Bulwark, a media outlet run by never-Trump Republicans, also conducted a focus group in South Carolina, finding many 2024 Trump voters unhappy with Graham as their nominee.

“I just don’t see how she’s qualified. Seems like she’s really just Lindsey Graham’s sister and that’s kinda the end of it,” one male Trump voter, who now disapproves of Trump, told the Bulwark.

“I was real disappointed in Donald Trump when he selected Darline Graham in the first place,” another male Trump voter who now disapproves of the president said in the focus group. “I thought she was unqualified then, and I continue to think she’s unqualified.”

At the end of the day, Trump put his thumb on the scale in South Carolina for a candidate who was not ready for prime time. In doing so, he angered many longtime GOP voters who do not appreciate having a candidate who will serve a six-year term forced down their throats.

So Far, So Good: Reported Early Vote Favors Democrats In Key Senate Races

So Far, So Good: Reported Early Vote Favors Democrats In Key Senate Races

Early voting has begun in half of the country, and there may be warning signs for Republicans in areas they need to win if they have any shot of maintaining their House and Senate majorities.

Across 10 Senate battlegrounds, 53 percent of early and mail-in votes have been cast by registered Democrats, while only 34 have been cast by registered Republicans, according to data from NBC News. And in none of those 10 battlegrounds, which range from Kansas to Maine, have more votes been cast by Republicans than Democrats.

As of last Wednesday, the number of votes cast by Republicans was lower than it was at that point in the 2022 midterm cycle in 10 of 12 states that provide party-registration data for early-voting figures and had seen a significant number of ballots cast, according to Tom Bonier, a senior adviser to TargetSmart, a left-leaning elections research firm. While the same was true for Democrats in nine of those 12 states—a phenomenon that Bonier chalks up to waning use of mail voting—Democrats also led Republicans in the number of ballots cast in 10 states.

Given that polls show independent voters poised to break toward Democrats, a sizable drop-off in Republican voters would cause the bottom to fall out for the GOP.

“So far, the Early Vote data I’ve seen has been broadly consistent with what those likely voter polls are suggesting. Across the board, the people showing up to vote in person appear to be disproportionately Democratic,” Zachary Donnini, an election analyst with VoteHub, wrote in a post on X. “We first saw it in Virginia and Ohio, and now this week’s early voting in Georgia and North Carolina has been particularly concerning for Republicans. Mail ballot return rates in New Jersey and Arizona tell a similar story. Nearly every measure of enthusiasm I’ve seen, both in surveys and in early voting, currently favors Democrats.”

A deeper dive into the numbers shows the hole Republicans find themselves in.

In North Carolina, the Republican share of the early-voting electorate is down nine percentage points from the same point in 2022, according to The New York Times. And in Iowa—where Democrats are looking to pick up the state’s GOP-held open Senate seat—Democrats lead Republicans in votes already cast, 54% to 30%. That’s a big swing from the same point in 2022, when 48% of the early vote was Democratic and 39% was Republican.

Of course, early-voting data can be misleading. A voter’s party registration doesn’t necessarily mean the voter cast a ballot for that party, and extrapolating from the data includes a lot of guesswork.

However, Republicans in critical states are sounding alarm bells about the data.

“This is really a weird cycle,” Tanya Karabanovs, a volunteer with the Ohio Republican Party, told The New York Times of the struggle her party has faced in get-out-the-vote efforts. “There’s no way to feel confident about any of the races, honestly.”

In Michigan, a local Republican Party chair had to resign in September after he publicly warned about the difficulties his party faced getting their voters out to the polls amid Trump’s sinking popularity with the GOP base.

“The vibes on the ground are the worst I’ve seen in my life,” now-former Marquette County Republican Party Chair Jackson Karki, who posts on X under the handle @RedLionPolitics, wrote in mid-September. “No one wants to promote candidates, no one wants to knock doors, no one wants to do shit. Attendance for any right wing event is at all time lows anywhere I go. Thank you Donald Trump for ruining it for us… and handing the country over to socialism.”

Ultimately, the GOP’s turnout issues reflect what the polls have been telling us for months: Republican voters are growing disillusioned with President Donald Trump, angry over his war in Iran and his tariffs that have spiked gas prices and caused economic hardship across the country. Those voters are threatening to sit out this election or even vote for Democrats, an outcome that would cause a blue tsunami.

For example, a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that just 33% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president—the lowest rating this poll has clocked in either of Trump’s terms. The pollsters also found that the generic ballot—in which voters say what party they will vote for in their own congressional district—has Democrats leading Republicans by 13 points among those who say they are “certain to vote” or have already voted.

When it comes to the early vote, the worst thing for Republicans seems to be that it confirms that the polls may not be off—and may even be underestimating Democrats.

In any event, we will know the outcome in 15 days. All gas, no brakes.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Maria Elvira Salazar

Six More! Democrats Again Expand House Battleground As GOP Decline Worsens

With less than a month to go to the midterm elections, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Monday announced that it added six more candidates to its “Red to Blue” program, which gives financial and organizational support to top-tier Democratic nominees in Republican-held House districts.

All six candidates sit in districts President Donald Trump carried by double-digit margins in 2024. But as the bottom falls out for Trump and the GOP, with even Republicans abandoning the party amid frustration with the rising cost of living and the boondoggle of a war in Iran, Democrats now view these seats as winnable thanks to both the political environment and the strength of their candidates.

The candidates the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added to the “Red to Blue” program include:

  • Chris Jones, an ordained minister who is running against GOP Rep. French Hill in Arkansas’ 2nd District. Trump won this district by 15.5 percentage points in 2024. But like other areas with large agricultural sectors, Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran have hit the district’s residents hard, putting a seat like this in play.
  • Dwayne Romero, an Army engineer running in Colorado’s 3rd against Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd. Trump won this district by 9.7 points in 2024. A super PAC affiliated with Trump is spending in this seat, which means they have data showing it is at risk.
  • Former television news anchor Eliott Rodriguez, who is running against GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar in Florida’s Miami-based 27th District. Trump carried the seat by nearly 15 points in 2024. But his cruel immigration agenda and his poor handling of the economy has caused Hispanic voters to swing hard to Democrats in polling from this cycle, imperiling Salazar’s reelection hopes. Indeed, Salazar herself is so worried that she cut an ad (lightly) denouncing Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts.
  • Former Nevada state Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson, who is running against Republican David Flippo in Nevada’s 2nd District, a seat Trump won by 13.9 points in 2024. Established in 1983, the district has never been held by a Democrat, but Benitez-Thompson is a moderate Democrat running against Flippo, who is so odious that the district’s retiring Republican congressman has refused to support Flippo’s campaign. Polls show the race is close. And Trump is reportedly planning to hold a rally in the district, though that might not be helpful at a time when his approval rating is in the toilet.
  • Blake Gendebien, a dairy farmer running against Republican Anthony Constantino in New York’s 21st District. Trump won the seat—held by retiring Rep. Elise Stefanik—by nearly 21 points in 2024. But as far back as last year, Republicans saw seats like this slipping away, with Trump reneging on his decision to nominate Stefanik to his Cabinet over fears her district could flip to Democrats in a special election. What’s more, Constantino, the GOP nominee, is a Trump-obsessed lunatic who gets into petty social media feuds, making him a poor nominee.
  • Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, who is running against Republican Brent Taylor in the Volunteer State’s 9th District, which the GOP corruptly redrew to make it unwinnable for Democrats. Trump won the newly redrawn seat by 21.1 points in 2024. But Democrats view Pearson as a strong recruit who could overcome the gerrymander.
“The candidates added to our Red to Blue program today are winning over voters with their message of lowering costs—from gas and groceries to health care and housing,” DCCC Chair Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA) said in a news release. “At a time when so many families are struggling to pay the bills, Americans deserve representatives who will actually fight to make their lives better. Less than one month out from Election Day, voters are ready to turn the page on House Republicans’ broken promises and elect Democrats to the House Majority.”

The DCCC’s expansion of its “Red to Blue” program comes a few days after the committee said it was investing in eight other House seats Trump carried by double digits.

Meanwhile, as Democrats go on offense, Republicans are starting to abandon GOP incumbents it now views as DOA in November. CNN reported on Saturday that the National Republican Congressional Committee is in talks to pull out of New Jersey’s 7th District, where GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. looks like toast thanks to his infamous disappearing act.

CNN also reported that Republicans are also mulling the abandonment of Iowa’s 1st District, represented by Republican Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, who is trailing Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan in polls.

Both seats are projected to flip blue by Inside Elections, a top political handicapping outlet..

Indeed, Democrats are feeling so confident about their odds on November 3 that the DCCC’s political director told Politico the party could hold as many as 240 seats when the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3. For reference, that would be two seats shy of what Republicans held after the 2010 red wave.

“Anywhere between 218 and 240 feels very viable,” the DCCC’s Brooke Butler told Politico. “We feel confident that we will get to 218. The question that I’ve told people from the beginning cycle is ‘How much?’”
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Scott Perry

Republican Strategists Wail As More House Seats Are Seen Slipping Away

With 34 days until the midterms, Republican strategists see at least five U.S. House seats are a lost cause for their party as President Donald Trump’s abysmal approval rating threatens to drag the GOP into the political abyss.

Punchbowl News reported that Republicans are broadly resigned to losses in California’s 48th District, Iowa’s 1st District, Nebraska’s 2nd District, New Jersey’s 7th District, and Pennsylvania’s 7th District—all GOP-held seats that in a neutral environment would be highly competitive.

“Nearly every senior Republican and Democrat involved in 2026 believes these five R seats are all but lost,” Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman wrote in a post on X.

Three of those contests (CA-48, NE-02, and NJ-07) are currently rated as “Lean Democratic” races by the Cook Political Report, while Iowa’s 1st and Pennsylvania’s 7th are still in the “toss-up” category. Given that even Republicans say they are the underdogs in these seats, it suggests that the political handicapping organizations are slower to react to the electoral landscape and thus their current ratings may not reflect the true peril the GOP is in.

What’s more, Punchbowl reported that a handful of other districts are also close to being cooked. They include:

Punchbowl said these four seats “are growing more difficult for Republicans but still within reach.” It’s why even the typically gun-shy race-rating groups have declared that it’s “almost impossible” for Republicans to keep control of the House.

Indeed, Republicans’ political situation is so dire that many in the party are downright despondent, shocked at how their party went from riding a high in November 2024 to now bracing for the kind of blue wave that could take down GOP lawmakers in seats Trump won by double-digit margins.

Independent journalist Tara Palmeri said one unnamed Trump ally told her the following at Trump’s midterm convention in Texas three weeks ago: “It’s going to be a tsunami. Total wipe out. Anyone saying we’re going to hold the Senate, that’s not going to happen. They’re delusional. Get ready for impeachment. Everyone needs a lawyer now.”

Another anonymous Republican operative told her this at an event during the two-day convention event: “What are we doing here? We’re all going to lose. … We’ve known this is all over for two months. It’s over. I guess we’re just supposed to party until then?”

Personally, I’ve been covering political campaigns and elections for 14 years now, and I have never seen one side more freaked out about what they are seeing than Republicans are right now. The fact that GOP operatives are this miserable and admitting that they are about to get their asses handed to them is, for lack of a better word, stunning.

Republicans’ collective freakout suggests their internal polling matches how bad the public polls are for their party.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats currently hold an 8.8-percentage-point lead on the generic ballot, according to election analyst Nate Silver’s polling average.

Democrats generic ballot 2026 Chart by Andrew Mangan/Source: Silver Bulletin/Created with Datawrapper

“A D +8.5 generic ballot (likely bigger among likely voters) would produce a very blue map,” Nate Silver wrote Monday in a post on X.

Ultimately, Republicans are in this position because of Trump’s idiotic tariffs and boondoggle of a war in Iran—two economically disastrous policies that the cowardly Republican Party refused to stop.

Trump’s tariffs helped spike inflation, while his war has caused gas prices to surge. And both are squeezing Americans financially, with a growing number of Trump’s own voters saying they regret their votes.

Given that gas prices are unlikely to meaningfully drop before early voting starts, Republicans are in a massive amount of trouble. It’s no wonder they are panicking.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

New Major Polls Show Democrats With Huge Generic Ballot Lead In Midterm

New Major Polls Show Democrats With Huge Generic Ballot Lead In Midterm

Facing grim odds in the midterm elections, Republicans had been holding out hope that as Election Day drew near, polls would tighten and the GOP’s odds at keeping their congressional majorities would improve. But with just one full day left until October—the point in an election cycle when voter decisions are hardened—that hope is gone.

A spate of polling released Tuesday brought only more grim news for Republicans, whose optimism that President Donald Trump’s midterm convention would narrow the polling gap has now been dashed less than three weeks after the event wrapped.

At the national level, a new survey from Angus Reid Global showed Democrats with a 16-percentage-point on the generic ballot, which asks voters what party they will vote for in their congressional districts. That aligns with a finding in the latest YouGov/The Economist poll, which asked a similar question but used candidate names and found Democrats with a 15-point lead among likely voters.

If the final outcome of this year’s midterms is close to those results, it will be a blue tsunami the likes of which haven’t been seen for decades.

Of course, with gerrymandering corruptly slanting House maps toward the GOP, a massive majority for Democrats is unlikely to occur in November. But if Democrats do in fact pull off a 15-point win in the House popular vote, Republicans in seats no one currently sees as competitive could lose, and the GOP’s control of the Senate would likely be gone.

It wasn’t just national polling that brought bad news for Republicans and good news for Democrats.

Two Ohio surveys dropped on Tuesday, showing Democrats with big leads in the Buckeye State, which has trended heavily toward Republicans in recent years.

A Marist University poll found Democratic Senate nominee Sherrod Brown leading Republican Sen. Jon Husted by eight points. Worse for the GOP, a plurality of voters in the state (41 percent)—which Trump carried by double digits two years ago—said their vote was intended to be a rebuke of the president.

The Marist poll also had Democrat Amy Acton leading Republican Vivek Ramaswamy by six points in the governor’s race. If Acton pulls it out, Democrats would win the state’s governor’s mansion for the first time since 2006.

Meanwhile, a Suffolk University/USA Today survey also found Acton ahead of Ramaswamy, this time by nine points. The pollsters also surveyed the Senate race but have not yet released results for that contest. However, if Acton is leading by that much, it’s almost certain that Brown is up in that poll, too.

As polls paint a disturbing picture for the GOP, party operatives are feeding angry quotes to media outlets to vent their frustrations.

“Fucking [JD] Vance was in Kansas … not a good sign,” an unnamed “Texas-based GOP consultant” told Politico of the vice president’s campaign travel. “We’re on defense everywhere. The map’s expanding for [Democrats], and there’s a limit to what the administration can do.”

“This is the week where it felt like the bottom started falling out in earnest,” Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, told The Wall Street Journal. “President Trump is the Republican Party right now, and by virtue of his lower approval ratings, the entire party is dealing with that political reality.”

Others are still clinging to delusions that things could improve.

One unnamed “Senate Republican operative” told The Washington Sun, “Is it a shitty environment? Absolutely. Does it seem to be getting worse? Absolutely. Is it possible to keep the majority? It’s still possible.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos


Fear Of Election Doomsday Propels Republicans Into Stages Of Grief

Fear Of Election Doomsday Propels Republicans Into Stages Of Grief

Republicans had been keeping their midterm fears at bay over the summer, convincing themselves that after Labor Day—when voters really tune in—polls would narrow, avoiding a total disaster for their party.

But with less than six weeks until Election Day, that hope is gone.

Democrats’ lead on the generic ballot has surged over the last two weeks, as President Donald Trump’s approval rating plummets to -22 percent —the lowest for any president at this point in their tenure since political polling began.

So in a desperate attempt to reverse their fortunes, Republicans are practically pleading with voters—reaching the bargaining stage of grief before a single ballot has even been counted.

Multiple GOP lawmakers, who for months have been voting to allow Trump to continue his war in Iran, are now calling for an end to the conflict that has cost more than $43 billion in taxpayer dollars, spiked gas prices, and ultimately threatens to take down the global economy.

Others are saying that they want to return to Washington to try to mitigate the disaster of their own making, vowing to suspend the gas tax and ban diesel exports—even though oil and gas experts say that would cause exponentially more harm than good.

“The House should return to DC immediately to work to pause diesel exports, suspend the gas tax, fully unleash E15 and biodiesel, and work on a diesel relief program for truckers and farmers,” Iowa’s GOP Senate candidate Rep. Ashley Hinson wrote on X. “Americans need relief and I’ll work with anyone to deliver.”

Of course, Republicans will likely not be returning to Washington. But even if they do, they’ll be forced to vote on articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—which GOP leadership is trying to avoid at all costs.

But hey, they’re working hard for us!

Party ID chart from Gallup Source: Gallup Screenshot from Daily Kos

Non-elected Republicans, fearing a wipeout, are also bargaining with their own party to do something to avoid the impending disaster.

“Yesterday, Iowa House Republicans were informed by their own pollsters that if you are in a +15 district you’re within the margin for error, if you’re in a +10 district you’re underwater, and that this might end being an even worse midterm environment than 2006,” right-wing radio host Steve Deace wrote on X.

He added, “I slept on whether to share this publicly, because I don’t want to cause anyone to black pill. But this morning I ultimately decided the truth should be shared while there is still six weeks left to do something about it for the good of the country.”

Deace went on to plead with Trump and GOP strategists to fix the problem, saying that they need to better articulate the reasons and goals for Trump’s boondoggle of a war in Iran.

“We need the president out on the stump asap. We need better and way more aggressive messaging. Stop running fake and gay ads about how often so-and-so shows up for votes, and instead mercilessly hammer Democrats on the wickedness they’re voting for,” he wrote.

Deace concluded, “Articulate specifically what the mission/victory is in Iran/Hormuz, because out here in the cheap seats it feels like another Middle East War quagmire regular folks are paying for on both ends all over again.”

Ah, yes, it’s the “fake and gay ads” that are the problem here, and everything can be solved by putting the guy with a 34% approval rating on the campaign trail. Good plan, Steve! Please, Republicans, listen to that guy!

Meanwhile, at least one Republican told a disaffected GOP voter to just stick with the party—an interaction that did not go well, to say the least.

“Bro we need your vote,” former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida wrote in response to Robbie Smither, a Florida Republican who wrote that he planned to vote Democratic this year for the first time in his life because of GOP sycophancy to Trump.

“I hate the war too. But the Democrats want to trans your kids,” Gaetz added.”

But it turns out that message didn’t sit well with Smither.

“With all due respect, stop pissing on people and telling them it’s raining,” he shot back. There is absolutely no logical evidence that [Democrats] want to ‘trans’ my two sons. None.”

Smither went on to say, “What we worry about is feeding him and his brother. Paying the mortgage and homeowners insurance on the house we’re raising them in.”

And therein lies the problem for Republicans, whose anti-trans messaging is falling flat because voters care more about the cost of living than the GOP’s dumb culture wars.

Ultimately, anything can happen in six weeks. But watching the GOP freak out is all you need to know about the state of play.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Sherrod Brown ad

Why GOP's Huge Cash Advantage Won't Save Republicans From Midterm Crash

Republicans are massively outspending Democrats in a desperate bid to hold on to their House and Senate majorities, with President Donald Trump’s super PAC and other outside groups financed by the GOP’s billionaire benefactors running hundreds of millions in ads slamming their Democratic opponents as dangerous radicals.

But even Republicans are admitting that their cash advantage is not the silver bullet they were hoping for, warning that even with the ad onslaught, the party is losing—and badly.

“We’re gonna get crushed,” an unnamed House Republican lawmaker told MS NOW. “The only question is by how much.”

There’s a number of reasons why the GOP’s spending isn’t going to save them from electoral disaster.

First, the spending disparity in some places isn’t as big as it looks.

Campaign finance law dictates that candidates get better ad rates than super PACs. And given that Democratic hopefuls are far out-raising their GOP counterparts in Senate contests in Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, and Ohio, it makes the ad spending disparities smaller than meets the eye.

Indeed, those who want to make a difference in the election should donate directly to candidates in competitive races, rather than outside groups. Daily Kos has helpfully put together a handy list of House and Senate candidates that we believe your donations will be best spent on.

Most important, however, is the fact that no amount of money can change the outcome of an election if the ad messaging is not addressing the issues most important to voters. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

As Americans practically beg the Republican-controlled Congress to address the high cost of living and skyrocketing gas prices, Republicans are instead running bigoted ads fearmongering about transgender issues.

The ads are not only vile, but they are filled with lies, including the absurd whopper that Democrats want to force kids into getting sex changes.

Republicans are running anti-transgender ads because they think that message is what won them the White House and control of the House and Senate in 2024.

Yet the 2024 cycle was about the cost of living. And voters (wrongly) thought Trump and the GOP would better address inflation.

Two years in, however, Trump and Republicans have done nothing to help alleviate their financial woes. Instead, they have made it worse with idiotic tariffs and the boondoggle of a war in Iran that has spiked fuel prices and inflation.

Now, Republicans are ignoring their role in making life worse for Americans, and are instead focused on an issue that just 1% of Americans say is most important to them.

What’s more, in 2026 many of the states where these vile anti-trans ads are running have already passed laws restricting transgender rights. So fearmongering about the issue just doesn’t hit as hard.

“The bottom’s beginning to fall out,” an unnamed “House Republican from a blood-red district” told Politico. “We have money that we’ve never had before, but they have every strategic advantage in their direction, and the president’s made it worse.”

Ultimately, the GOP ad-pocalypse began two weeks ago, when Trump finally unleashed his war chest, as Republicans had been begging him to do for months.

But since then, polling has only gotten worse for the GOP, as gas prices reached historic highs thanks to the war in Iran spiraling further out of control.

Democrats’ lead on the generic ballot—which asks voters which party they will vote for in their congressional districts—has grown more than 2 points since Trump’s embarrassing midterm convention. In fact, an Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday found Democrats with a stunning 14-point lead on the generic ballot—the highest the poll has clocked this cycle and an outcome that would lead to an electoral wipeout for the GOP.

Just as Republicans couldn’t gerrymander their way to a majority, they can’t spend their way out of this mess of their own making.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Ashley Hinson and Trump

Iowa Republicans Now Fleeing From Trump To Save Themselves In Midterm

Staring down an electoral wipeout, members of Iowa’s all-Republican congressional delegation are desperately trying to distance themselves from President Donald Trump.

On Monday, Rep. Ashley Hinson—the GOP nominee for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat—called for an “immediate end” to the war, which she blamed for the skyrocketing diesel prices that are hurting Iowa’s farmers.

“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” Hinson wrote in a post on X, saying that aside from ending the war, Congress should suspend the gas tax, ban diesel exports, and create a “diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs.”

She added, “I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.”

Of course, Hinson has voted four times against ending Trump’s war, including a vote just last week against a war powers resolution. So her attempt to paint herself as a bipartisan warrior who wants this war to end is face-saving bullshit, which her Democratic opponent Josh Turek has pointed out.

“[I]t’s easy to send a tweet but when you had the chance to vote to end this war, you chose not to. You voted seven times to continue it, including just last week,” Turek wrote in a post on X, addressing Hinson. “It’s time to actually end the forever wars and put Iowa and Iowans first.”

What’s more, Hinson calling for a relief program for farmers and truckers is the kind of government welfare she and other Republicans typically condemn.

Meanwhile, two of Hinson’s Republican House colleagues from Iowa—Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn—voted for the war powers resolution for the first time last week, a sign that they, too, believe the conflict is hindering their reelection bids. Nunn and Miller-Meeks are in toss-up races this fall, even though Trump carried both of their seats in 2024.

Like Hinson, both Miller-Meeks and Nunn called for the same policy changes to try to bring down the cost of fuel.

“We must immediately suspend the federal and state gas tax, sell American diesel to Americans first, and get relief to the farmers and truckers who cannot wait,” Miller-Meeks wrote in a post on X. “Then we fix the cause by drilling more here, selling E15 year-round, and ending the open-ended war. Last week I voted with Republicans and Democrats to do exactly that.”

“We have to bring down the price of diesel,” Nunn also wrote in a post on X. “My plan: Sell American energy to Americans first. Pass my Iowa-led biofuel bill = bring down gas 50 cents. Hold Big Oil accountable for gouging.”

The fact that Iowa Republicans are trying to distance themselves from Trump and his war is a telling sign of how badly things are going for the GOP six weeks out from Election Day.

A Marist poll released on Tuesday found Hinson trailing Turek in the Senate race by a stunning eight percentage points. The poll showed that a whopping 13 percent of Republican voters plan to defect and vote for Turek.

As for the lawmakers’ ideas to lower fuel prices, none of this would happen until after the election anyway. Republicans fled Washington, D.C., early to campaign.

On top of that, experts say their ideas are unlikely to work—and may even cause more harm than good.

“U.S. diesel prices are determined not by a U.S. supply and demand balance, but a global one,” gas prices expert Patrick De Haan wrote in a post on X. “Keeping distillates and diesel home does not change the world price that reference our prices. You can’t fence off a globally traded commodity by executive order and expect the global price to stop applying to it.”

De Haan added that an export ban could backfire, causing countries that purchase diesel fuel from the U.S. to go elsewhere permanently and actually cause refinery closures.

“The U.S. spent years becoming the world’s backstop for diesel supply. Telling every buyer from South America to Europe that American supply is politically conditional pushes them to diversify away from U.S. refineries and U.S. supplies, softening long-term demand for U.S. product and foregoing political leverage,” De Haan wrote. “This will be painful if this trend continues.”

At the end of the day, Hinson, Nunn, and Miller-Meeks are just as responsible as Trump for the war and its consequences. For months, all three Iowa lawmakers refused to use their constitutionally granted powers to stop the president. And now that the war has spiraled out of control, they’re throwing out bad ideas in a last-ditch effort to try to fix the damage they helped create.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos


Hegseth and Johnson

House Republicans Recess Early To Escape Vote On Hegseth Impeachment

The House of Representatives has officially left Washington, D.C., for the final time before the midterms, canceling votes scheduled for Thursday to head home and campaign on their pathetic record of increasing healthcare costs, slashing taxes for the rich, and refusing to rein in President Donald Trump’s disastrous tariffs and war in Iran.

So why did they skip town so early?

Well, probably so they can avoid voting on articles of impeachment filed against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth over his handling of the Iran war, accusing him of committing high crimes for ignoring the Constitution and waging war without congressional approval.

Massie also accused Hegseth of carrying out extrajudicial killings by bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea, suppressing free speech by retaliating against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona for urging troops not to follow illegal orders, and kidnapping former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

House rules say that the speaker has to put the articles of impeachment on the floor for a vote within two legislative days. That clearly terrifies Republicans, as it would force them to either defy Trump by impeaching his favorite warmonger or tacitly vote to support the wildly unpopular war in Iran.

Both of those are bad options for Republicans, who can’t afford to anger Trump ahead of the midterms. But voting against the impeachment would essentially be signing off on how he’s handled the Iran war.

So rather than putting Republicans in that position, House Speaker Mike Johnson called a recess to stop the clock on the two-day voting rule.

“I think it shows the cowardice of the Republican Party,” Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said. “They are canceling votes to do business for the American people because they are afraid that that impeachment resolution of Pete Hegseth would pass on a bipartisan basis.”

She concluded, “The American people deserve better than Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump.”

Johnson had already canceled two weeks of votes that were scheduled through the end of September, saying that Republicans needed to get back to their districts to campaign. But campaigning for the next 48 days is unlikely to save them anyway.

Trump’s war in Iran and capitulation to Russia in its war against Ukraine have spiked oil prices, raising the cost of fuel across the globe. And that will have downstream inflationary impacts, as diesel—which is used to transport goods and power farming machinery—is at a record high.

Oil and gas experts say that prices are not going to come down in the near future, sounding the alarm on potential fuel shortages.

And it’s all happening just as voters tune in to the general election, with early voting having already started in a handful of states, with more set to come online in the coming days.

We’re already seeing voters’ frustration impacting polls, with Democrats surging on the generic ballot and leading in critical House and Senate races in regions that Trump carried by double digits in 2024.

Since September 1, Democrats’ lead on the generic ballot has grown by 1.1 points, with Marquette University Law School releasing a poll Wednesday that shows Democrats with a 13-point lead among likely voters. If it comes to fruition, that would be an extinction-level election for the GOP.

So House Republicans can go home to campaign all they want. But when they return, many of them will be losers.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos


Between Marshall's Cruelty And Trump's Madness, Democrats May Take Kansas

Between Marshall's Cruelty And Trump's Madness, Democrats May Take Kansas

Democrats have not held a U.S. Senate seat in Kansas in a whopping 94 years. But President Donald Trump’s horrendous shepherding of the economy is hitting Kansans especially hard, with Trump’s idiotic trade wars and boondoggle of a war in Iran slamming the state’s massive agricultural industry.

That’s turned reliably red voters in the state against their once Dear Leader and his Republican Party, putting Kansas’ Senate seat in play for the first time in decades. Indeed, the political handicapping outlet Inside Elections moved freshman GOP Sen. Roger Marshall’s race into the competitive column last week, saying polling shows Marshall’s reelection bid against Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton within the margin of error.

And Trump just made the situation even worse for Marshall and the GOP, threatening on Sunday to block sales of Canadian manufactured Bombardier planes in the U.S. as part of his moronic trade war with our neighbor to the north.

Bombardier employs more than 1,500 workers in the state, and Trump’s threat to ban the sales of the jets put those employees and their families at risk.

“NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Their products aren’t good enough! Over 50% of their revenue comes from the United States—They live off American Buyers, American Companies, American Airports, and American Service—All while Canada blocks our GREAT American Banks, and Companies, throughout the U.S.A. They even blocked Gulfstream Aerospace from doing business in Canada—Completely unjust and unfair! That Era is OVER! If they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a ‘piggybank.’ BUY AMERICAN. FLY ON AMERICAN AIRLINERS. ENJOY AMERICAN LIQUOR AND BEVERAGES. SAIL ON LAKE AMERICA. AMERICA FIRST!”

Marshall has yet to make a statement on Trump’s threat. But Hamilton tied Marshall to Trump’s trade bluster.

“Bombardier supports 1,500 Kansas families, providing good-paying jobs that put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads during a cost of living crisis caused by Washington. And now, the president is trying to take that away,” Hamilton wrote in a post on X.

Hamilton added, “The decision to ban Bombardier from selling in the U.S. is a direct attack on Kansas workers and Kansas jobs—yet Roger Marshall is notably silent. We cannot allow this chaotic economic policy to continue to hurt Kansans; they deserve so much better. As your Senator, I will always stand up for Kansas workers.”

That’s not even the tip of the iceberg for Marshall and his problems.

On Tuesday, The New York Times published a bombshell report that found Marshall—a multimillionaire who was an ob-gyn before launching his political career—sued 700 of his former patients, and had 81 of them arrested for unpaid bills for emergency surgeries, deliveries, and miscarriage treatment.

The report said Marshall sued patients for as little as $100, and even interviewed some of them—providing a roadmap for Democrats to launch devastating campaign ads against Marshall in the run up to the midterms.

“I had every intention to pay, I was just struggling,” Marshall’s former patient Kellie Clutts told the Times. The Times reported that Marshall sued Clutts in 2015 for an unpaid $129 bill for postpartum care.

Clutts added, “I was recently divorced, trying to do everything on my own. I told them I could make partial payments, but it seemed like no matter what I said, they wanted the full amount at once.”

The Times also interviewed Meischa Zimmerman, a woman who Marshall’s lawyers had arrested twice for failure to pay a bill for a C-section delivery.

“I asked them quietly: Can you not handcuff me in front of my daughter?” Zimmerman told the Times of her arrests. “I explained to my daughter I was going for a ride.”

She added, “I had to choose whether I’d pay my electricity or pay $50 to a doctor who didn’t need it.”

That’s a far different story than Marshall is trying to tell in campaign ads, in which he paints himself as a fighter for lower healthcare costs and working families—even though he supported the massive Medicaid cuts the GOP made.

Between Trump decimating the Kansas economy, and multimillionaire Marshall having indigent patients arrested for failure to pay small bills for his monopolized ob-gyn practice, Democrats have a real shot in Kansas.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos


What's Their Excuse? Republicans Send Regrets To Trump's Midterm Confab

What's Their Excuse? Republicans Send Regrets To Trump's Midterm Confab


President Donald Trump will host a midterm convention this upcoming Wednesday and Thursday, which he absurdly says will help Republicans hold onto their House and Senate majorities this fall.

But even many Republicans admit the production is a shambolic affair that won’t help the GOP with voters and may even hurt their electoral prospects since Trump cannot stay on a palatable message.

And thus, numerous Republican lawmakers are not planning to go, making up excuses for their absences in a likely effort to avoid being the target of Trump’s wrath.

Rep. Max Miller, the Ohio Republican facing an unexpectedly tough reelection race due to domestic violence accusations, told The New York Times he won’t be going because he is “staying home to campaign and spend time with family.”

Rep. Nick LaLota, Republican of New York, told Politico that he is skipping the event in order to take his daughter to visit colleges.

Florida Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar told CNN she has events in her district she can’t miss. The same went for vulnerable GOP Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan and Zach Nunn of Iowa, who told Politico they have events back home on the same day.

“I just felt I’d be more useful in my district,” Barrett said to Politico. “I travel a lot for this job and if I can be back home and see my family and do the job back home as well, then that’s sort of what I lean toward doing.”

Vice President JD Vance was asked on Thursday about the poor attendance from GOP lawmakers at his boss’ event, and he claimed that it wasn’t a big deal.

“No, that doesn’t concern me,” Vance said. “We don’t need a congressman in a tight race to be there in all cases. Sometimes it might be better if that guy’s out there raising money. But I think people are going to make a determination: What is the best way for me to spend my time as a candidate?”

However, it’s not just vulnerable Republicans who aren’t going. Lawmakers in safe seats are also skipping, citing all sorts of reasons.

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole said he is going to a “dove hunt” and thus can’t make it. Also scheduled to attend the hunt are Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, and Oklahoma GOP Reps. Kevin Hern and Frank Lucas, putting their attendance in question.

“I had stuff already planned in my congressional district, or I would be there,” Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky told NewsNation about why he won’t be at the convention.

Other Republicans said they were undecided about going, citing not the politics but the insane cost of entry. It’s at least a $25,000 donation for two tickets, the ability to book one hotel room at an additional cost, and entry to a welcome event. What a steal!

“It’s $25,000, apparently—I just got a bill,” Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told Politico, saying because of that he’s “not sure” if he’ll go.

Ultimately, while Vance said he’s not worried about lackluster attendance, you better believe Trump will take it poorly. He is obsessed with optics and looking like a tough guy, and if the convention has sparse crowds, you can bet an infamous Trump tantrum is on the horizon.

We’ve got our popcorn ready. This thing is going to be a mess.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos


Diesel Fuel Hits Record High As Holiday Drivers Cope With Gas Spike

Diesel Fuel Hits Record High As Holiday Drivers Cope With Gas Spike

The average cost of diesel fuel set a new record on Friday, hitting a whopping $5.85 per gallon, according to AAA’s fuel tracker—a 30 percent increase from the same time last year.

The timing of the diesel spike could not be worse for the GOP, which is directly responsible for the price increase as the party did not stop Trump from launching an ill-advised war that he now cannot seem to get out of.

The midterm elections are less than two months away, with mail-in ballots hitting mailboxes as early as today in states across the country.

And a surge in diesel prices will almost certainly trickle down to higher prices in the rest of the economy. That’s because diesel powers the trucks, boats, and trains that transport goods across the country. Diesel is also used in farming machinery to harvest crops, meaning a spike in diesel prices will also likely impact grocery prices.

Given that the cost of living is the issue voters say will determine how they vote in the election, that leaves Republicans in a terrible spot.

“This impacts you, even if you don’t fill up with diesel,” Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee wrote in a post on X of the new diesel price record. “Higher diesel prices > higher fuel costs for truckers > higher shipping costs for businesses > higher prices on store shelves > higher costs for you.”

Indeed, GOP operatives told Politico that they are resigned to the fact that prices will not come down in time to save them in the midterms, with handicappers saying Republicans are almost certain to lose their House majority—and their control of the Senate is in serious peril, too.

“In the spring, I was like, look, I think we need gas prices coming down starting in August, like in a significant way. I think voters need some time to kind of get over their frustrations, and I think we’ve run out of time,” an unnamed “Republican operative working on several races across the country” told Politico.

Compounding Republicans’ problems is that record-setting diesel prices hit their base hard, which could depress GOP turnout or even cause some Republican voters to defect to the Democrats. That would turn what was already expected to be a bad night for Republicans into a catastrophic one.

It’s why states like Iowa, Ohio, and even Kansas—which all have major agricultural sectors that are heavily impacted by spiking diesel prices—are on the map for possible Democratic Senate pickups, even though they backed Trump by double-digit margins in 2024.

Worse still for Republicans is that regular gasoline prices are also elevated, with the average price of a gallon of gas at $4.15. That’s a record high for Labor Day, when millions of Americans take car trips for holiday getaways.

That, too, will leave bad tastes in the mouths of voters, who are reminded of Trump’s role in raising their cost of living every time they drive past a gas station or fill up their tanks.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Why Democrats Are Loving (And Laughing At) Trump's Very Bad Midterm Ads

Why Democrats Are Loving (And Laughing At) Trump's Very Bad Midterm Ads

After months of complaining from Republicans, President Donald Trump’s political operation is finally opening its coffers to run midterm campaign ads. But there’s a problem for the GOP.

The two ads from Securing American Greatness, the nonprofit tied to Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, are self-aggrandizing duds all about how Trump is supposedly America’s savior—a message sure to fall flat among an electorate that broadly dislikes Trump.

The first is, we kid you not, titled “Toughest Guy.” It’s all about Trump, featuring images of him and American flags to try to convince voters about how great Dear Leader is. Yet it says nothing about why voters should return his party to power.

It uses a speech from UFC President and CEO Dana White, in which he said that Trump “is the toughest, most resilient person that I’ve ever met, and nothing was going to stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves.”

It does not once tout a single accomplishment, nor does it ask Americans to vote Republican in this fall’s midterm elections.

The second ad primarily uses audio from Trump’s unhinged State of the Union address from February, in which he claimed that he reduced egg prices by 60 percent and that he “took prescription drugs from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest.” The ad ends with a creepy male narrator declaring, “He’s fighting for you every day. Help him finish the job.”

Securing American Greatness is putting roughly $1 million behind the ads, an amount that may sound like a lot but is a pittance given that it’s running across several major metropolitan areas.

But given how terrible the ads are, maybe that’s a good thing for the GOP.

Trump’s approval rating is in the toilet. High-quality polls put his job approval hovering around 35% and sometimes even lower, closing in on former President George W. Bush’s rating in the years after the Iraq War began and as the Great Recession heated up.

Plastering Trump’s face on Americans’ television screens, alongside a message that he is the greatest and that voters should help him by voting this fall, is political malpractice. Americans are angry at him for his inflationary tariffs, boondoggle of a war in Iran, and comically out-of-touch building projects, the last of which is making the nation’s capital resemble Pride Rock after Scar’s ill-fated reign in The Lion King.

Indeed, Trump is so unpopular that some Republican candidates have begun to distance themselves from him, erasing mentions from their campaign websites and refusing to attend his impending disaster of a midterm convention.

However, Trump is an egomaniac who needs constant praise, so the fact that this is the message his political operation is putting out should surprise no one.

Still, a few Republicans were somehow shocked by the ads.

“The GOP is so screwed in November if this is how the president spends his money,” right-wing radio host Erick Erickson wrote in a post on X, regarding one of the ads.

Liberals, meanwhile, mercilessly mocked the advertisement.

“CHEF’S KISS! Watched this with no sound but encourage all Republican campaigns to amplify and put endless money behind this,” Bradley Beychok, co-founder of the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge 21st Century, wrote in a post on X.

“If they want to spend money on a weird ad reminding people about the president that about 2/3 of voters disapprove of…go ahead,” Democratic strategist Josh Dorner wrote in a post on X.

Reprinted with permisson from Daily Kos


Pushing Unpopular Data Centers Is Trump's Latest Midterm Gift To Democrats

Pushing Unpopular Data Centers Is Trump's Latest Midterm Gift To Democrats

President Donald Trump on Monday vigorously defended unpopular AI data centers, saying those who oppose the resource-sapping warehouses “want to end up being backwards and poor.”

“The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign. The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening!”

Trump’s post insults Americans’ intelligence in order to defend Big Tech, and it comes as polling shows bipartisan opposition to data centers. It’s a rare point of political alignment in these polarized times.

That opposition stems from how the data centers use considerable amounts of natural resources, drive up electricity costs for consumers, and bring less long-term economic benefit for their surrounding areas than tech companies often promise.

Earlier this month, National Republicans released a memo saying GOP candidates who defend data centers are in trouble over the issue, and suggested that Big Tech should run advertising to defend them or risk hardened opposition to data centers that power their AI models.

The memo specifically named Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio as being negatively impacted by his support for data centers. It said that his reelection is imperiled due to the Democratic ad campaign highlighting Husted’s support for the issue.

Yet Husted hasn’t stopped simping for data centers, even as it hurts his campaign. On Monday, he appeared on NewsNation to extoll the virtues of data centers.

“There are literally communities in our state that have welcomed data centers who are seeing their local property taxes get cut dramatically as a result of the new revenue that comes in,” Husted said.

Ultimately, Trump’s full-throated support for data centers will test GOP voters’ opposition to the issue.

In the past, Republican voters have quickly adopted Trump’s positions on issues. But given that even many GOP voters are souring on their Dear Leader, it’s unclear whether they will change their minds.

A Fox News poll from July showed that a majority of every demographic group—including Republicans and MAGA Republicans—opposed the construction of a data center in their area. And responses to Trump’s Truth Social post show that his MAGA diehards are not taking his side this time.

At the end of the day, supporting data centers has become so politically toxic that Republican candidates and lawmakers are starting to come out against them. But given that Trump demands that GOP lawmakers adopt his views and defend his positions, Republicans could be forced to drop that opposition and defend data centers.

Leave it to Trump to take a position that could further imperil his party in the midterms.

Is The Trump Administration Using Media Leaks To Manipulate Oil Markets?

Is The Trump Administration Using Media Leaks To Manipulate Oil Markets?

The Trump administration on Wednesday appears to have leaked a story to its favorite Iran war stenographer at Axios that the military has created a secret shipping corridor out of the Strait of Hormuz, helping to escort 15 to 20 oil tankers through the narrow passageway per day.

Axios’ Barak Ravid reported: “The U.S.-led operation is mitigating one of the most painful aspects of the war: the disruption to oil supplies that sent crude prices soaring. While the amount of oil coming out of the strait is still below pre-war levels, it is making a discernible difference in global supplies, officials say.”

U.S. officials claimed to Axios that the operation was allowing the movement of “[a]bout 10 million barrels of oil a day.”

Commodity experts, however, are more than skeptical that this secretive operation has taken place, and wonder if this—like apparent past attempts by the Trump administration—is just an effort to manipulate oil prices to try to bring down the cost of gasoline.

“That’s a lot of oil, and much more than we’re currently seeing,” oil commodity expert Rory Johnson wrote in a post on X on Wednesday, adding that oil trackers have only seen 5 million barrels of oil leaving the strait per day, half of what the government claimed to Axios.

“We’re likely undercounting actual transits, but it feels like a stretch that they’re managing to get *double* that volume out entirely undetected—no sign of loadings, or where these ships may be landing on the other end,” he continued.

Tanker Trackers, a maritime intelligence firm that analyzes the amount of oil being shipped globally, also cast doubt on the Axios report.

“Maybe U.S. officials mean ten million barrels per convoy transfer and not per day. Industry consensus is much lower than that,” the company wrote in a post on X, giving the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt that they do not deserve.

If the Trump administration were using Axios to manipulate the oil markets, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Early on in the war, Ravid frequently reported right before oil futures markets opened that a peace deal was imminent, which would lead oil commodity prices to fall. However, they’d typically spike right back up when it became clear that there was no peace deal to be had.

Nearly six months later, there is still no resolution to the war, with Iranian leaders continuing to use the Strait of Hormuz to inflict pain on the global economy in the hopes they can get Trump to fold on his demands that they drop their nuclear ambitions.

Indeed, as the persistently high price of fuel is spiking inflation, Trump’s approval rating has fallen and is threatening his Republican Party with massive midterm losses.

Even Trump is showing public signs of frustration, threatening to “bomb the shit out of” countries that cross him.

What’s different about Axios’ report now is that it seems traders have wised up to the apparent manipulation efforts.

Oil prices rose again on Thursday. The average price per gallon of gasoline in the U.S. is now at $4.10, according to AAA—up nearly $1 per gallon from a year ago.

Johnson, the oil commodity expert, revisited Axios’ story again on Thursday morning, saying he is even more convinced now that the report isn’t accurate.

“What’s fascinating is just how aligned ~every ship tracker is right now on Hormuz exit flow,” Johnson wrote in a post on X. “There’s a *strong* incentive for someone to break from the pack and to be the tracker who confirms the WH numbers. And yet.”

And yet, indeed.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos




Angry Families Of Sailors Stranded On USS Lincoln Slam Trump And Hegseth

Angry Families Of Sailors Stranded On USS Lincoln Slam Trump And Hegseth

Family members of the military personnel who have been left to languish on the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier off the coast of Iran are irate at President Donald Trump and his unqualified Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying the two men’s callous comments about the suffering of the service members are beyond the pale.

Both Trump and Hegseth denied widespread reports that the troops aboard the ship are facing a lack of proper nutrition, working toilets, and declining mental health due to their historically long deployment. The two have also had the audacity to say that the troops haven’t been deployed long enough.

“I grew up in a United States where you have to be very respectful of the military, as they’re making the ultimate sacrifice and protecting their country, and now you have the commander-in-chief and defense secretary dismissing their experiences and calling them liars. I’m really angry,” the sister of a crew member aboard the ship, who declined to give her name due to fear of retribution for her brother, told The Guardian. “It’s a feeling of betrayal. These are frustrating, false and careless comments, and they are going to have a lot of consequences for my brother.”

A mother of another young sailor on the ship echoed those sentiments.

“My son signed up to serve his country. But why isn’t his country serving him? They are not feeding him or supplying clean water, and living conditions are horrible. He didn’t sign up for that,” she told the Guardian.

Karen Bramlett, the grandmother of a service member aboard the ship, also was aghast at Trump’s dismissal of her grandson’s suffering.

“Donald Trump needs to be ashamed of himself to let them suffer the way that they’re doing,” Bramlett told NPR. “They’re over there fighting for our country. And this is the thanks they get? They can’t even get help from him or his administration.”

While Trump and Hegseth have denied the poor conditions, Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, visited the aircraft carrier on Saturday to assess the situation for himself, and acknowledged there were problems related to improper food supply and hot water. But Cooper said those issues were raised “months ago” and have been addressed—which also contradicts the reports from the family of troops on the ship.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, shown on Aug. 3.AP

“What I found aboard the Lincoln is that many elements of those stories are old news,“ Cooper said in a statement after his visit.

Ultimately, the reports of the poor treatment of the troops forced to wage Trump’s ill-planned war in Iran are unlikely to help Trump and the GOP, who face serious midterm peril over the public’s disapproval of the conflict.

Kat Cammack

Some Republicans Finally Urge Alleged Abuser Miller To Drop Out As Deadline Looms

Ohio GOP Rep. Max Miller’s response to horrific domestic violence allegations has been a complete train wreck, with Miller looking worse and worse as he attempts to deny that he was ever violent toward his ex-wife and two-year-old daughter.

First it was releasing a nude photo of his toddler to try to claim he did not break her collarbone. Then it was releasing a string of text messages and emails to deny that he withheld the toddler’s beloved blue bunny stuffed animal, but which only proved that he did just that.

The saga has Republicans terrified that Miller will cost them a House seat in November’s midterms that should otherwise easily stay in the GOP column.

However, few Republicans have publicly called for Miller to step aside—likely because Miller has thus far dug in his heels and said he will fund his own campaign, and condemning him publicly would just add ammo for Democrats to use this fall.

The line among many House Republicans seems to be that the abuse allegations are “sad” and that right now they want a House Ethics Committee probe that Miller himself initiated to play out before they comment on whether they think Miller should step aside.“There’s all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time, it’s not my business to get engaged in it,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told Politico, adding that “we have to allow this process to play out. It’s just begun.”

Ick.

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL), chair of the GOP Women’s Caucus, used similar wording.

“These are deeply troubling allegations, and they deserve a fair, thorough review. Due process is not optional—it is how the truth is established and justice is served. This is clearly an evolving situation, with new allegations continuing to emerge, which is all the more reason to let the full process play out and follow the facts wherever they lead,” Cammack said in a statement. “The Ethics Committee is now reviewing these allegations, and I respect that process. Above all, this is an incredibly painful situation for everyone involved, and my heart especially breaks for the little girl caught in the middle.”

So much for the women’s caucus sticking up for women.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) was asked if he agrees with Ohio GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno—Miller’s ex-father-in-law—that Miller should not only resign but be in prison, and he demurred.

“It’s a family matter and, um, I don’t have any observations beyond that,” Thune replied. What a backbone he has.Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Husted, an Ohio Republican facing a challenging reelection in the Buckeye State, at first echoed Thune’s sentiments.

“Let’s focus on letting them sort through this on a family level,” Husted told Newsmax on Tuesday when asked if Miller should drop out.

But by Thursday, after the disturbing bunny withholding story caught fire, Husted had changed his tone to call on Miller to step aside—likely because Miller depressing turnout in his House seat could also hurt Husted’s odds at reelection.

“I know both Max Miller and Emily Moreno, as well as their families,” Husted wrote in a post on X. “I am deeply saddened that their personal lives have become such a public matter, especially as it relates to their daughter, Ruthie.”

But Husted added, “Given everything they are facing, I do not see how a campaign for Congress benefits any of them. I believe Max would be making the right decision to step aside as a candidate and resign from Congress to focus on what is in the best interest of his daughter. Years from now, I believe he will look back and know it was the right choice for her.”

Time, however, is running out for Republicans to save this seat.The deadline for Ohio Republicans to replace Miller’s name on the ballot is Monday evening. And as of Friday, when this article was written, Miller had not dropped out.

Ultimately, if Republicans weren’t cowards, they wouldn’t be in this situation at all. Miller’s domestic violence allegations had been known for years, yet Republicans were silent and refused to punish him or call on him to step aside.

Now, they may pay for that cowardice with the loss of a winnable House seat.