Trump Continues to Try to Buy the People's Votes with the People's Money

Forgive us for saying so, but some of the best evidence that Donald Trump and the Republicans don't have a secret plot to remain in control of the government is the fact that he keeps thrashing around like a beached whale, trying desperately to pull something out of his hat to try to save the GOP before Election Day. The last several days have witnessed two more attempts to try to buy votes with federal money.

First up is Alaska, which Trump visited early last week. Before, during, and after his appearance there, he flogged an oft-repeated promise to get a gas pipeline built, which would ostensibly reduce Alaskans' energy bills by some sizable percentage. The funding for this pipeline would come partly from the federal government and partly from the governments of South Korea and Taiwan.

Assuming you could believe in everything Trump is saying, then this would be a little on the skeezy side as far as electioneering goes, but would also be within the realm of normal pork-barrel stuff. In other words, this is a promise that some non-Trump president or politician might also have made on the campaign trail. And, in fact, non-Trump presidents have made this exact promise, going all the way back to... Jimmy Carter. In other words, Trump is proposing that he will succeed where seven other presidents have failed, and where he himself has thus far not succeeded in nearly 6 years in office spread across his two terms.

In other words, it's reasonable to wonder exactly how much this will move the needle with Alaskans, since they've heard it all before. The basic problem is that a pipeline like this is very, very expensive, and nobody has found a way to make it economically viable, even with significant federal investment. It is true that if South Korea and/or Taiwan are willing to pony up, that could be a deal-changer. But the money they have allegedly committed is part of the investments they vaguely promised to make in order to avoid high tariffs. And the two nations just put out a statement (in Chinese, so use Google translate if you click through) in which they say, in effect, that progress has been made, but nothing is imminent, and more planning and investigating is needed. We have a sneaking suspicion that their planning and investigating will continue until, oh, January 20, 2029, or so, when they will discover the proposal isn't so viable after all. And even if we are wrong, well, the project is vaporware now, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. So, it's certainly not going to solve the immediate problems (i.e., high gas/diesel prices), and it's probably not going to get many Alaskans' hopes up.

Yesterday, meanwhile, Trump was in Kansas campaigning for Sen. Roger Marshall (R), who is in way more trouble than a Republican in Kansas should be in. And when the President wasn't issuing forth with antisemitic slurs (Trump, like Joe Biden before him, has not updated his internal dictionary to reflect the fact that you can't call people "Shylocks" anymore), he was announcing that the government will give $8 billion in grants to farmers to offset diesel costs this harvest season.

The USDA promptly released a "fact sheet" about the initiative, which is long on braggadocio about how much Trump loves farmers, and short on actual facts. It says the money is "authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) Charter Act," but it is not clear to us if this money was already authorized by Congress, and thus isn't actually new funds, or if the administration came up with the cash from some as-yet-unknown source. If it's the former, then this is basically just sleight of hand. If it's the latter, then it's basically another bribe.

What is clear is that any farmer who wants money will have to jump through a bunch of paperwork hoops, and the first set of guidelines won't even be available until November (with others coming later). So, we're talking cash that is going to be spread over a pretty large geographic area, that applicants may or may not get, and even if they do get it, it's months (or more) into the future. Will that save Marshall? Maybe, especially since every vote counts in a race that is as close as this one looks to be. But if we were him, we wouldn't be sleeping all that much better right now. (Z)

The Truman Show

We have now written this basic item half a dozen times in the last 6 weeks or so, but yesterday there were two more major polls where Donald Trump hit his all-time low in terms of approval rating.

First up is the newest from Reuters/Ipsos. At the moment, they have Trump with 66% disapproval (that's two-thirds!), 31% approval, putting him underwater by 35 points. That is his worst result from this poll in either term, and is also a bad place to be 2 weeks before an election. On the generic Congressional ballot, the poll has Democrats up 47% to 35%, for a net of D+12.

And then there is the newest from The Washington Post/ABC (who also uses Ipsos to conduct their polls, it should be noted). This one also has Trump at 66% disapproval, though with 33% approval, meaning he's "only" underwater by 33 points. That is also a low for him, for either term. WaPo/ABC has the generic Congressional ballot at 52% for the Democrats, 44% for the Republicams, for a net of D+8.

And, as long as we are at it, here's where Trump's approval rating sits with the various aggregators:

Aggregator	Approve	Disapprove	Net
Silver Bulletin	37.5%	60%	-22.5%
The Economist	34%	61%	-27%
CNN Poll of Polls	34%	65%	-31%
The New York Times	37%	61%	-24%
Race to the WH	36%	58%	-22%
Cook Political Report	37%	61%	-24%
Average	36%	61%	-25%

The worst midterm approval rating in the polling era belongs to Harry Truman, who was around 34% at the time of the 1946 midterms. So, Trump has a real chance to make history and set a record here. And in case you are wondering, the Republicans gained 54 seats in the House in the 1946 midterm elections, along with 9 seats in the Senate. Due to extensive gerrymandering, we can't imagine Democrats flipping 54 House seats. However, if you squint really, really hard, it is possible to imagine 9 Senate seats flipping, namely: IA, KS, ME, MS, MT, NC, NE, SC, and TX. It would take a monstrous killer blue tsunami, though. (Z)

Congressional Democrats' To-Do List

As we have noted a couple of times recently, if the Democrats retake at least one chamber of Congress (very probable), and with it control of both the committees and the legislative schedule, then they will have to decide how many of their eggs to put in the "pass bills and dare the other chamber and/or Trump to kill them" basket and how many eggs to put in the "investigate members of the Trump administration to the hilt" basket.

The folks at the Daily Kos are... enthusiastic, let's say, about the second basket, and have already worked up a list of the first 10 targets they think the blue team should look into. Here it is, along with the reason the person should be investigated:

1. Curtis Wood: Taking millions to do an incompetent job relining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
2. Todd Blanche: Consistent unethical behavior
3. Lindsey Halligan: Shady indictments of James Comey and Letitia James during brief stint as U.S. Attorney
4. Tom Homan: Accepted $50,000 bribe; then the ensuing investigation disappeared into the ether
5. Sean Duffy: Great American Road Trip show, funded by companies his department does business with
6. Kristi Noem: $200 million+ spent on dubious ads, plus her flying love nest
7. Elon Musk: DOGE, but also all the government contracts he's landed for his companies
8. Jared Kushner: Extreme conflicts of interest
9. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump: Long list of schemes designed to profit off the presidency
10. Donald Trump Sr.: Everything

It is a pretty solid list. And it's worth noting that the Daily Kos is pretty lefty. There has been some supposition that the lefties would not have the patience for slow, somewhat weedy congressional investigations, and would want legislation now, now, now. Maybe that is not the case.

Anyhow, we thought it would be interesting to hear from readers. If you were advising would-be Speaker Hakeem Jeffries or would-be Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (both D-NY), which individual would you suggest better damn well be on the "to investigate" list, and why? They are probably aware of Trump Sr., so let's say he's a given. Send your thoughts to comments@electoral-vote.com, with subject line "The Usual Suspects." (Z)

Trump Learns about Dirty Pool, British-Style

Donald Trump is the master of stupid lawsuits. But even by his standards, the lawsuit he filed against the BBC is very bad. An episode of the documentary series Panorama, entitled "Trump: A Second Chance?", included footage from his 1/6 speech that was edited in a way that made it seem as if he had directly ordered the rioters to attack the Capitol, rather than just implying that is what he wanted done.

Trump pitched a fit, and the BBC apologized, agreeing that the editing was problematic. Two high-ranking BBC executives were also compelled to resign. That was not enough for the President, however, so he filed a lawsuit in federal court in which he argued that he has been damaged to the tune of $10 billion—$5 billion for defamation and another $5 billion for unfair trade practices. We struggle to even understand the basis for the latter part of that claim. And we really don't understand what he is trying to accomplish here. He clearly wasn't damaged to the tune of $10 billion, or $0 billion for that matter. And the BBC is not, say, CBS, and does not need to grease the skids to make sure a merger goes through without Department of Justice interference.

The BBC initially tried to get the suit dismissed by arguing that the documentary did not air in Florida, and so Trump could not possibly have been defamed there. That did not work, so they moved on to Plan B, which is make the deposition process as painful as is possible. They demanded that Trump himself sit for a deposition, which he hates to do because: (1) It is boring and (2) Even he knows that he says dumb things during depositions. However, he clearly wants the money and thinks he might get it, and the BBC is within its rights to demand that he be deposed. So, Trump negotiated a date and then... flaked on it last week, claiming vague "national security obligations." The BBC went to court to demand that he be compelled to actually do the deposition, and Judge U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué A. Lett concurred, threatening sanctions if Trump does not take care of business.

But that's not actually the dirty pool referred to in the headline. No, the BBC has just advised that it wants to depose another key witness, namely former special counsel Jack Smith. This would give him an opportunity to tell his story, without grandstanding frompeople like Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), and would get a whole lot of attention. Trump and his legal team have pitched a fit, obviously, decreeing that "Smith lacks any personal knowledge regarding the issues in this matter."

The problem here is that defendants have pretty wide latitude to explore potential avenues for evidence, and Smith is clearly much more relevant here than some random Joe off the street. So, the Judge will probably OK the deposition. And Trump will certainly have to sit, even if he doesn't want to. So, he's going to have to make a decision sometime very soon about how badly he wants to tilt at the windmill that is that $10 billion claim. Our guess is that this lawsuit will be quietly withdrawn, like so many others. If not, Trump is risking that he ends up embarrassing himself. and that Smith embarrasses him even more. (Z)

JB Pritzker Is In

We had an item yesterday about how Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) has made it as clear as day that he's running for president. So, how about another governor of a big, blue state? We give you Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL).

Pritzker, of course, is distinct among potential Democratic nominees because he is a billionaire. The real kind, not the Donald-Trump-before-crypto kind, with a net worth estimated to be a bit more than $4 billion. This gives him a leg up, not only because he can theoretically self-fund, but because he can spread some of that money around in a manner that could grease the skids for 2028.

And that is exactly what he is doing, to the tune of nearly $40 million thus far. Pritzker and his team insist they are being very careful about their giving, making certain to invest only in solid candidates who have put together good campaigns backed by strong teams. This may be true, but the giving is also careful in another way, in that it's going mostly to early and/or swingy states. For example, Pritzker has sent $500,000 to the Michigan Democratic Party, $650,000 to the campaign in Nevada to create a constitutional right to an abortion, $100,000 to candidates running for statewide office in Iowa, and the same for candidates running for the U.S. House in New Hampshire.

That said, not all the donations are dictated solely by state borders. He's given $1.6 million to Rep. Shomari Figures (D-AL), $1.9 million to Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson (D) and $1.3 million to Chris Jones in Arkansas. All three are in very competitive races for House seats and all three are Black. He's also given $400,000 to gubernatorial candidate Aaron Ford in Nevada, who offers the trifecta of being Black, and in a swing state, and in an early-voting state. Pritzker has also ponied up $2.8 million for Rep. Gabe Vazquez (D-NM) and is the single-largest donor to the campaign of would-be Texas governor Gina Hinojosa (D), at $1 million and counting. The former is Latino, the latter Latina.

Reporters have taken notice of Pritzker's generous, and clearly strategic, giving and have asked him to confirm the obvious conclusion that he's running for president in 2 years. The Governor regularly responds with the observation that he'd been donating to Democratic candidates for a long time, and that "I gotta win in 2026 before I worry about 2028." It is true that Pritzker is up for reelection this year... in a race that polls have him leading by about 20 points. It is also true that answer is not exactly the Full Sherman, or anything close to it.

There are many other potential presidential candidates who are spreading some lettuce around right now, among them Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Pete Buttigieg. Of course, none of them has a war chest with more than $4 billion in it, so when it comes to the "giving" race, Pritzker has the clear upper hand.

And the real story here is that the 2028 presidential race is already underway, even though the 2026 midterms aren't even in the books. Looks like we'll have stuff to write about, even after November 3. (Z)

Local Bytes: Ranked-Choice Voting

We want to make sure to run several of these before the Tuesday after next. Today, it's an assessment of ranked-choice voting in Alaska, followed by some comments on the Senate race in Maine, and some responses to the previous Local Bytes:

P.F. in Fairbanks, AK: Ranked-choice voting has become a foundational issue in campaigns in Alaska, both local and statewide, and not necessarily because Ballot Measure 2 seeks its repeal (again...). Consider the ways some races are handling it:

U.S. Senate: Sen. Dan Sullivan(s) (R-AK), Mary Peltola (D) and some other guy (R, maybe?)

Gerald Heikes (R). Right. Honestly had to look up who the fourth person was. I just got a mailer today from Senator Dan S. Sullivan (R) letting me know that he is my "1st CHOICE and ONLY CHOICE." This is interesting to me, since this race is clearly between Sen. Sullivan and Mary Peltola, and it's unlikely both get eliminated. It makes me wonder why a statement on RCV is even necessary, given how political the system is right now.

U.S. House: Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK), Bill Hill (I), Eric Hafner (D) and... uh... some other person?

Right, Jim McDermott (L). Anyway, this one is very interesting because the Hill campaign is worried about Democrats skipping the (I) and voting for Hafner. Why shouldn't Democrats vote for the Democrat, you may ask? Well, for starters, he's in prison in New York. In 2024, the Alaska Democratic Party sued to have him removed from the ballot and lost at the Alaska Supreme Court. The concern is that too many (and by "too many," I mean "not very many but enough") Democrats will vote for Hafner and then exhaust their ballots. In this particular race, there is some irony that Hill supporters are likely RCV supporters, but RCV could be what does him in.

Governor: Bernadette Wilson (R), Dave Bronson (R), Treg Taylor (R), and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a.k.a. JKT (D)

Wilson has been calling on the Republicans to unite around her and for the other Republicans to drop out. To their credit, the other Republican candidates also agree that there should be only one Republican on the ballot. In this race, Republicans are panicking about RCV because the Republican campaigns have been denigrating each other and alienating their supporters. Add to that the fact that Bronson was not a popular mayor of Anchorage; that (former state AG) Treg Taylor was temporarily disqualified for the race due to a campaign finance scandal (and was only reinstated because his former boss, Gov. Mike Dunleavey, R, ordered his Lt. Governor to reinstate him); and Wilson has been endorsed by a not-necessarily-super-popular-anymore Donald Trump. JKT, on the other hand, has no intra-party competition. With conservatives already supporting the repeal of RCV, it's entirely likely that ballots for any of the three Republicans are exhausted at the second round. As a result, mailers are now coming out BEGGING people to "Rank the Red" to "Stop the Radical [California/Leftist/Liberal] agenda."

State House District 33: Rep. Mike Prax (R-North Pole), Barbara Haney (R), and Pepper McFarland (U)

(U) is Undeclared. This is the only race in the interior (and so the only one I'm familiar with) that has more than two people running, and the only one where two candidates of any same party are running against each other. As a side note, the other state House races in the interior feature mostly Republicans against Nonpartisans and Undeclareds. I mention this race to a national audience only because the Republicans in this race will not be voting for each other as Choice #2. The vehement opposition to RCV by Haney makes it unlikely her supporters will rank anyway. Because of this, District 33 may see a non-Republican for the first time since at least the 1970s.

I profile these for you because they demonstrate the various ways that ranked-choice voting is affecting races in Alaska. I know we aren't normally front-and-center, but this year we may help rebalance Congress. Our Senate and House seats are held by people who stick pretty close to Trump and can rarely be found around the state, and both seats are competitive. Our legislature has bucked conservative Republicans and formed D-I-R coalitions in both chambers, and with a Democratic governor there could be some serious paradigm shifts in our statewide politics.

For your other readers in Alaska, I say hang in there: Only a few more weeks before we can be done with the "Lower 48 Liberals" and the "Seattle Trawlers" ads. You know the ones I mean.

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M.C. in Friendship, ME: In the first Maine U.S. Senate debate, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) bragged about getting an exception to Trump's no-Canadian-imports rule—for road salt (!) for the snowplows to scatter this winter. Troy Jackson responded, "What about all the other stuff? We can't eat road salt." It wasn't long before we got these:

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P.R. in Saco, ME: The testy final debate between Logger Troy Jackson and Concerned Susan Collins led to his telling her to shut up, such that you wrote, "By Maine standards, that's a major throwdown." You nailed it.

After the debate, our local commentators did their best rendition of Trevor Noah's "White People Being Flabbergasted." While all of them are too experienced to have replicated the deer-in-headlights display by Katie Zacharia, they floundered until they found the thread to pull on: how tired we all are of the nasty, nasty, bad, ugly, negative ads leading up to this election. Was it any wonder, given how exhausted we all are by the ads, that the candidates (who clearly don't like each other) lose it when they poke at the other?

At this stage, is there a gender discrepancy between Joe Biden carping, "Will you shut up, man?" to his opponent, and Jackson telling a woman to shut up, such that the outcome will be affected? Who knows. Possibly; Many folks in the State of Maine are inured to the rule I grew up with: that "shut up" (and "stupid") count as swearing. Call us quaint if you like. Just, please, make it all stop! November 3 can't come soon enough.

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M.S. in Portland, ME: I am making a prediction that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME wins the 2026 Maine U.S. Senate race by 5% or more. I am relatively new to Maine (3 years); however, I have followed Collins' political career since its inception. My prediction is based in some facts and some anecdotal observations.

Facts: Maine is a relatively small state, both in terms of population and geography, which means that in her decades in the Senate and running campaigns Susan Collins has touched a lot of Mainers, both literally and figuratively. She has pressed the flesh of many of her constituents at diners, town halls, and via door knocks. She has helped many small businesses over the decades, especially during the pandemic, and brought a lot of pork projects to Maine that have personally benefited many in this state. As noted recently by an Electoral-Vote.com reader in Deer Isle, Collins is an experienced campaigner with a robust ground and GOTV operation. Despite substantial polling to the contrary, Collins won re-election in 2020 by almost 9%. Conversely, Troy Jackson has never won a statewide election, represented only a small population of Mainers in his role as a state senator, and he lost the statewide Democratic primary for governor this year, coming in third in that race.

Anecdotal observations: Neither in his campaign for governor nor his nascent bid for the U.S. Senate has Troy Jackson or a surrogate knocked on my door, asked me about my voting plan, or invited me to an event. He seems to be running on the idea that not being Susan Collins is going to get him elected, which is a bad bet in Maine. To be clear, I am a Democrat and I voted for Jackson last week via in-person absentee voting. I hope to the Diety that he wins, but I am not feeling good about his chances. I would love to hear from my fellow Maine voters on their opinions and observations about the Jackson v. Collins race.

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J.C. in Milwaukee, WI: First, I wanted to quickly address the point of J.R. in Deer Isle, from the Local Bytes. J.R.: It sounds like you are planning to vote Democratic even if you're "unenrolled," which means you're likely marked off in a database somewhere. Door knockers don't go door to door, they knock on very specific doors at very specific parts of the year. If you're being inundated with Collins canvassers and mailers, it's likely because they think you are a gettable vote ("persuadable," "undecided" etc); likewise, if the Jackson campaign isn't bothering you, it's probably because they have you down as a banked vote.

This means that your conclusion might be backwards: The GOP/affiliated groups wasting time and money on you means their data or coordination is actually not optimized. However, it's right around now that things start to shift to GOTV. If you're planning to vote on Election Day and you don't get someone calling or stopping by to make sure you vote, that would be mildly worrying—unless you vote in most/every election, and therefore are guaranteed to vote in this one.

Also, a dispatch for Wisconsin. Three billionaires have given tens of millions of dollars to the GOP here. The airwaves are flooded. I have knocked something like 2,500 doors here for a handful of candidates. Hundreds of hours beyond on lots of projects. While I feel pretty good about things, it's going to be a knife fight here until the very end.

We have a chance to get a trifecta, which will mean flipping the State Senate and State Assembly. If there are any readers interested in getting a lot of bang for their buck, I would encourage you to find some of the tossup State Assembly races here and donate! Every little bit helps even as we are being outspent everywhere.

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V.L.B. in Murphysboro, IL: In response to S.G. in Vancouver: I understand your pain. You want, you need a Democratic representative in your district, but you're stuck with a choice between a Republican and what appears to be a Republican in Democrat's clothing in Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. And having read the linked NPR article, yes, voting for the SAVE act is particularly egregious, especially considering that the same day your letter was posted, someone else posted that the very Republican lieutenant governor of Utah went against her own very Republican Senator Mike Lee on the very same issue. SAVE, yes, I can see that as a deal breaker.

One, I'm glad I'm not faced with your decision. But...

Two, using Angela Paxton's own words against her, is it really in anybody's interest, especially yours, to let the seat fall back into Republican hands?

Either way, in 2 years, there will be another primary. There will be a chance to get a better Democrat onto the ticket. But in the meantime, do we want to give this seat away to the Republicans?

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A.B. in Wendell, NC: Did I read that right?? OMG, I am gobsmacked that P.M. could be tired of Trumpism... perhaps there is hope!! I do not envy P.M., living in NC-01. If I lived there (I am in NC-02) I would have to leave the line blank because I'd never vote for Republican Laurie Buckhout (in fact, I say, when I see commercials about her: "Buckhout needs to get the **** out!") But I could not vote for the backstabbing Democrat Don Davis, either. And I actually do know him personally. He lost me when he threw trans people under the bus, in direct violation of the North Carolina Democratic Party's (NCDP) mission statement... and the NCDP lost me as a volunteer when they did nothing about Davis.

I once ran for state Senate, and I was once a precinct chair, 1st Vice Chair of the 2nd Congressional District Executive Committee, a member in good standing of the State Executive Council, served on the Platform and Resolutions Committee, was a member in good standing of the State Executive Committee, and Chair of the only Trans Caucus in the nation. NCDP lost all of that with me... and I shall give them neither my money nor time anymore, until they follow their own rules. I will continue to support Team Blue, and I will give time and such as I can afford money-wise to individual candidates I feel are worthy. Don Davis will not be one of them.

We should note that while P.M. in Edenton leans a bit right, we've never had the impression that P.M. is MAGA.

Any readers who have updates on local developments, please send them to comments@electoral-vote.com, with subject line "Local Bytes." (Z)

Today's Senate Polls

The Texas race has clearly tightened up a bit. That said, James Talarico consistently remains in the lead, even if his lead is within the margin of error. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Florida	Angie Nixon	42%	Ashley Moody*	51%	Oct 02	Oct 15	YouGov
Iowa	Josh Turek	44%	Ashley Hinson	47%	Oct 08	Oct 12	NPA Polling
Massachusetts	Ed Markey*	56%	John Deaton	29%	Oct 05	Oct 12	U. of Massachusetts
Ohio	Sherrod Brown	50%	Jon Husted*	50%	Sep 26	Oct 18	Activote
Texas	James Talarico	48%	Ken Paxton	46%	Oct 10	Oct 14	U. of Houston

* Denotes incumbent

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