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The Atlantic: “Trump’s war in Iran has appeared to throttle Republicans’ chances in the midterms; the unending conflict, and the resulting surge in oil and gas prices, has eroded the GOP’s poll numbers and fueled Democrats’ hopes of taking both chambers of Congress.”
“Stymied in his efforts to bring that war to a close, Trump recently shifted his focus to resolving the Ukraine conflict, in part to bring fuel prices down. But the way he’s chosen to try to do that has provided his fellow Republicans with a nasty October surprise. In a first for a U.S. president, Trump has sided with a traditional adversary, Russia, over a democracy that is not only fighting for its existence but also acting as a bulwark against a wider war. Trump’s diesel deal with Putin will have a negligible impact on American energy prices, but it’s a financial lifeline for Moscow.”
“Trump has demanded an energy cease-fire—he even announced one earlier this month that had no basis in reality—yet has focused his ire entirely on Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil refineries. He blames those strikes for the rise in energy prices while ignoring the real culprit, Iran’s ability to defy the United States and close the Strait of Hormuz. He’s convinced himself, three people close to him have told us, that Ukraine’s attacks on the refineries are, in part, meant to undermine Republicans’ chances next month—and, by extension, Trump.”
“Troy Jackson knows he wasn’t Maine Democrats’ first choice to challenge incumbent Sen. Susan Collins. And he knows he isn’t the most charismatic candidate to grace a Senate ballot,” the Washington Post reports.
“But the Democratic nominee in one of the country’s highest-profile races also knows that may not matter.”
“As Jackson’s contentious contest with Collins reaches its final days, Democrats in Maine are acknowledging — and in some ways celebrating — that the race isn’t about their accidental nominee.”
“They are instead banking on rage with President Donald Trump — and deep-seated resentment over Collins’s role in advancing his policy goals — to deny the 73-year-old Republican senator a sixth term.”
David Frum: “The budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended on September 30 is about $2 trillion, or about $160 billion more than in Joe Biden’s last complete year as president. Next year’s deficit is likely to be even bigger. When Trump spoke of eliminating the national debt, total debt stood at nearly $35 trillion. On the current trajectory, total debt could reach $45 trillion by 2028.”
“To put that another way: The U.S. debt reached $10 trillion for the first time during the financial crisis of 2008. That once seemed a crushing burden. Now an extra $10 trillion in debt is the cost of just four years of Trump’s fiscal recklessness.”
“I think there are a lot of races right now just looking at the polling that are up for grabs. I mean you could call them jump balls, however you want to say it. They’re margin of error races, and there are some that are maybe a little out of the margin. But I do think the polling right now, like it has been in past elections, under-reflects the Republican vote.”
— Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), quoted by Fox News.
Mother Jones: “The guy who tried and failed to catch Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed with a gotcha question about his supposed loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood is reportedly the son of a Republican strategist who received $250,000 last month to campaign against El-Sayed.”
“Peggy Flanagan said she ‘graduated Phi Beta Kappa’ while arguing a decade ago for legislation to encourage greater teacher diversity in Minnesota’s public schools,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Now the state’s lieutenant governor and Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, Flanagan was a Minnesota House member when she said college teaching diversity transformed her from a high-school graduate with a 1.75 grade-point average to a University of Minnesota honors student.”
Said Flanagan in 2016: “Everything changed, there was a switch, something clicked. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa because I saw myself reflected in my teacher and I saw myself reflected in my curriculum.”
“A commencement program for Flanagan’s class of 2002 doesn’t list her as an honors student, although it did highlight those with GPAs of 3.5 or higher. The university’s current GPA threshold for Phi Beta Kappa is 3.65 for a senior.”
A new American Research Group poll finds Donald Trump’s approval at 29%, while 67% disapprove.
Bloomberg: “Men between 18 and 30 years of age who are determined to vote now say they prefer a generic Democratic congressional candidate to a GOP alternative by a 57%-40% margin, according to a Cygnal poll released late last month. And only a third of respondents said they were extremely determined to vote in the upcoming midterms.”
“That represents a sharp reversal for a group credited for returning President Donald Trump to the White House in 2024, and could prove a death knell to GOP hopes of retaining the Senate across key states like Michigan, Ohio and Texas.”
“It’s especially notable because of the broad investment the Trump administration made catering to the demographic.”
A new Emerson College Polling poll in California finds Xavier Becerra (D) leading Steve Hilton (R) in the governor’s race, 60% to 33%.
“The Trump administration is spending at least $343,100 on video cameras to monitor several of President Donald Trump’s construction projects, federal records show, after the president falsely accused ‘vandals’ of causing the widespread damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,” the Washington Post reports.
“Brad Lander, an ally of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who is a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Congress, was among 90 volunteers detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday,” Reuters reports.
“The Pentagon has given the Department of Homeland Security permission to test a military-grade heat ray and develop tactics to potentially use it in operations at the southern U.S. border,” CNN reports.
“The heat ray, officially known as the Active Denial System, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away, according to the U.S. military.”
“The energy beam causes a burning sensation when it comes into contact with the human skin — which Pentagon officials have previously compared to feeling a blast of heat when opening a hot oven.”
“For Democrat Scott Colom, his quest to win a U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi is a long shot but not a lost cause,” CNN reports.
“The 43-year-old local district attorney is hoping to topple Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in a deep-red state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the chamber in nearly four decades or elected a Black candidate in a statewide race since the Reconstruction era. President Donald Trump won the state two years ago by 23 points.”
“He and his allies argue that the GOP’s political headwinds and the state’s significant Black electorate – which at 35% is the largest of any state – puts Mississippi on the cusp of becoming competitive, with enough attention and money.”
Doug Sosnik: “President Trump is calling on Americans to cast their vote as if he were ‘on the ballot.’ With less than two weeks before the election, it appears that voters will do exactly that.”
“The political environment continues to deteriorate for the GOP. Over the past month, Republicans have abandoned congressional races once considered highly competitive and have shifted resources to defending seats that once looked safe at the beginning of the year.”
“Republican losses were expected given midterm election history, but not at the level now projected.”
