Everyone Is Furious about the Diesel Deal

Congress put sanctions on Russia to block its sale of oil, which finances its war in Ukraine. Now, all of a sudden, Donald Trump wants to buy diesel fuel from Russia to help Republicans avert disaster in the midterms. Of course, this completely undermines the sanctions, making Democrats hopping mad.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called this "a deal with the devil" in an attempt by Trump to save his "flailing political fortunes." Schumer also tweeted: "This filthy deal will only aid and abet the same Putin who is helping the Iranians to target and try to kill American troops in the Middle East and who illegally and viciously invaded our ally Ukraine." Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) tweeted: "Lifting sanctions on Russia will only fuel Putin's war machine and prolong the conflict in Ukraine." Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) tweeted: "This poorly concealed attempt to mitigate the havoc caused by Trump's illegal war in Iran will only benefit the Chinese & Russian economies & lead to the slaughter of more innocents in Ukraine." Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) tweeted: "Infuriating—but this is what we warned anyone who would listen: Trump isn't the slightest bit trustworthy when it comes to Russia." Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) called the move "desperate." And there were many more.

And it was not only Democrats who lashed out at Trump. Some Republicans also did so. Former representative Mike Rogers, who is in a tight Senate race in Michigan, said: "You don't want to give that guy [Putin] an inch." Well, since Russia has been on the metric system for over 100 years, make that 2.54 cm. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that the diesel deal may well be illegal. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said: "It's a grave error by the president." Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) expressed his disapproval, but didn't go the last mile and condemn Trump. He is in a tight reelection race in Alaska.

In September, before he realized how bad the election forecast was, Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which gave Trump extra authority to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. It was not intended to help Russia. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) tweeted: "The President should be using those authorities instead of allowing Russia to export diesel, rake in revenues, and continue its catastrophic war in Ukraine."

Some Republicans went beyond just ranting and tweeting. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) said he will introduce a bill in the House banning all purchases of Russian oil. He said he has co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. He also said he will use a discharge petition to force a vote on the bill and further said he expects it to pass by a wide margin.

Oil analysts are skeptical that, even if the deal goes through, it will affect diesel prices much. If Russia diverts 500,000 metric tons of oil to the U.S. in November and 1 million metric tons in December, as Trump claims, the countries who would have otherwise gotten that oil are going to look elsewhere and prices may not change much. Also note that 1 million tons of oil is about 7 million barrels, or less than 2 days' worth of U.S. consumption. Is importing 2 days' worth of consumption going to have much effect? The U.S. price is tied to the world price and the world price is tied to world supply and demand. Unless more oil is put on the market, the price won't go down much. Russia can't easily ramp up production because Ukraine has been systematically attacking its refineries. Ukraine has been very clever about how it attacks the refineries. It targets the equipment used in the first stage of the refining process, the desalters. If they are destroyed, the entire refinery must shut down. Diesel shortages in Russia are so severe that in July, Putin banned diesel exports in order to save what was produced for domestic use. The result is it may be a while (and maybe never) before large volumes of Russian diesel arrive in America and prices drop. (V)

The Ship Has Sailed

Donald Trump has finally gotten the message that the evening of Nov. 3 will probably not be a fun time for the Republicans (see next item). He probably doesn't care so much about the fact that getting any more big tax cuts for himself and his billionaire buddies through Congress is very unlikely. But he is probably very worried that if the Democrats capture both chambers of Congress, every time the House impeaches him there will be a full-blown trial in the Senate, with evidence, witnesses, testimony from retired judges and law professors, etc. Desperate times call for desperate measures (like the Diesel Deal, above). But it is too late. That ship has sailed.

A new Politico/PF Global poll has shown that even an end to the war (which would require a complete surrender by Trump—and surrender is not one of his strengths) or lower gas prices (which is not doable before Nov. 3) wouldn't help in November. People have made up their minds already.

Here are some of the poll's findings:

As you can see, even if Trump were to get gas prices down $1, end the war, or conquer inflation, only 9-12% of the undecideds would vote for Republicans. What is also noteworthy is that if he did any of these things, it would make Democrats less likely to vote Republican, probably because they would see it as a meaningless trick. But Democrats aren't going to vote for Republicans anyway, so being more likely to vote Republican means going from a 0.01% chance to maybe a 0.02% chance.

Mike Noble, founder of the polling firm Noble Predictive Insights, said: "I think a lot of the die is already cast." A GOP operative working on battleground races said: "There's nothing that Trump can do, and frankly, even if he did something, no one would believe it anyway at this point." The poll showed that only a quarter of Americans think Trump could actually do any of these things. In short, the cake is baked and nothing Trump can do can unbake it in the next 3 weeks. He waited much too long before trying to deal with the problem. (V)

A Catastrophic House Scenario for Republicans Is a Real Possibility

In the past few days, there has been a spate of articles about the potential disaster in the House for Republicans, for example, in Politico, The Hill, Axios and The Cook Political Report. All of the articles are predicting a Democratic takeover of the House, which would be in line with normal results for midterms, where the president's party takes a hit. But this time it could be especially bad in the popular vote, although the extensive gerrymandering could temper the number of seats that flip.

One recurrent fear among Republican politicians and operatives is that white working-class men—the base of the current Republican Party—won't just stay home on Election Day, but will vote for Democrats to show their displeasure with the Republicans. When you can't afford to fill up your tractor with diesel, anger about whether a few players assigned male at birth are playing on girls field hockey teams in Massachusetts fades into the background.

One commonality in all the articles is that Republicans are aware that even some deep-red districts could be in danger. In ANY midterm with a Republican president, R+4 districts are in danger. But this time, even R+10 districts can't be taken for granted. This means that incumbents who were always safe in the past and never really had to raise money or campaign are now frantically trying to defend their seats. This also means that the NRCC and other Republican groups are having to pull money from light-red districts and move it to dark-red districts, which increases the chances of the light-red districts flipping even more. Nevertheless, some Republicans are pooh-poohing the problem. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who is retiring from an R+12 district, said: "I think there's just a lot of things in play, and of course, what do we have three weeks out—that's light years in political time." Actually, it is not. A light year is a measure of distance, not time. That makes as much sense as saying: "The election is 500 miles away."

Besides moving money from pink to scarlet districts, campaign schedules have changed. On Friday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) went to KY-06, an R+7 district Trump won by 11 points, to campaign for Ralph Alvarado (R). Republican House speakers don't normally campaign in R+7 districts unless internal polling shows a problem there. On Saturday, Trump campaigned in TN-07, the R+11 district Rep. Matt Van Epps (R-TN) is defending. Johnson and Trump are planning to campaign in Montana shortly, again something top Republicans don't normally do unless there is a five-alarm fire there. Top Republicans are also very worried about three of Iowa's four districts and the race to replace the retiring Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). Iowa is especially a problem because Rob Sand (D) is crushing Zach Lahn (R) in the gubernatorial race and he could have coattails.

Moving money goes both ways. Republicans redrew the Tennessee map earlier this year so they could win Steve Cohen's TN-09 district. It is now R+9, but Democrats think it is nevertheless in play and have put money into the campaign of Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, who they think has a chance. At least part of the Democrats' motivation is to scare the Republicans into thinking the Democrats have polling showing that TN-09 (and other deep-red districts) are in play, forcing Republicans to divert money to defend races they would normally take for granted. Here is a map of red districts the DCCC is actively targeting. However, Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA), chair of the DCCC, says she needs another $17 million to compete effectively:

The Cook Political Report changed the ratings on 18 House races last week—all toward the Democrats. Three of the four Iowa seats now lean Democratic, along with PA-07 (Ryan Mackenzie, R+1) and PA-10 (Scott Perry, R+3). Also, some vulnerable Democrats are now seen to be safe and some not-vulnerable Republicans are now thought to be vulnerable. Cook editor Erin Covey expects the Democrats to pick up 9-19 seats. The Republicans' challenge is getting the marginal voters who powered Trump's 2024 victory to vote this year. And if they do, to vote Republican.

At Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, more than 20 seats have been moved toward the Democrats since September. Over there, managing editor Kyle Kondik said: "High prices can destroy a political coalition." That would seem to be a slightly more clunky version of "It's the economy, stupid." (V)

Federal Judge Tells Trump He Cannot Access State Voter Data

Donald Trump desperately wants to build a federal database of all voters and prevent anyone not in the database from voting. It has probably occurred to him that by simply removing voters in deep-blue ZIP codes from this database, he can effortlessly prevent Democrats from voting, without resorting to ICEmen getting into fights at the polls on Election Day. Clean and simple.

Accordingly, he ordered all states to provide their voter rolls to the feds to initialize the database. Many of the state attorneys general have read the Constitution and know that the states run elections and although Congress has a minor role (e.g., setting a uniform Election Day nationally) the Executive Branch plays no role whatsoever in running elections. Accordingly, 30 states, including some Republican-run states, refused to hand over any data. The federal government responded by suing them.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge in D.C. Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, issued a 78-page ruling blocking the administration from collecting data on voters—even from the 18 states that are cooperating. She wrote: "DoJ cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of American people." She specifically noted that the DoJ had no plans to deal with inaccuracies in citizenship records. She cited a 2006 Social Security audit that found over 3 million U.S. citizens who had been incorrectly marked as noncitizens.

The government is reviewing the decision and will undoubtedly appeal to the Court of Appeals for D.C. and then to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, it is very unlikely the Supreme Court will tackle the case in the next 3 weeks. Also, federal law prohibits any systematic review of voter rolls within 90 days of any federal election, so action this year is very unlikely. There could be a huge battle about this for 2028, but for the time being, there is a truce.

If Trump tries again in 2027 and the Democrats control Congress, it is likely the Democrats will try to pass a bill explicitly banning the federal government from collecting this data or interfering in federal elections in any other way. There may well be enough Republican senators from libertarian states in the West to invoke cloture and block a filibuster. Libertarians don't like the idea of the feds telling the states what to do. If a bill passes, Trump will veto it, of course. Then there is the question of whether there are enough votes in each chamber to override a veto. There could be. (V)

Early Voting in Ohio Looks Good for Democrats

Early voting has begun in Ohio and the first indications suggest more Democrats are voting early than did so in 2024. Here are the data, broken down separately for the very red counties, moderately red counties, moderately blue counties, and very blue counties:

The shift is fairly constant across counties. In the deep-red counties, the increase in turnout is 27 points in favor of the Democrats. In the deep-blue counties, the shift is 25 points in favor of the Democrats. On the whole, the early electorate is about 27 points more Democratic than in 2024. This is a small but encouraging sign for Democrats Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton, who are running for U.S. Senator and Ohio governor, respectively. In a recent CNN poll, Brown is leading Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) by 6 points. In the race for governor, Acton is leading Vivek Ramaswamy by 8 points. (V)

Trump Has a New Press Secretary

Karoline Leavitt had her fill of lying on demand for a paltry $195,200 a year and quit her job as White House press secretary so she could move over to Fox and get paid a lot more to lie. Donald Trump was sad to see her go, since young, conservative blonde women who can lie with a straight face are hard to find. Nevertheless, he managed to come up with another one, Katie Zacharia. On eX-Twitter, Zacharia wrote that the appointment was "the honor of a lifetime." After all, how many jobs are there where you get paid almost $200,000 for telling lies all day?

Zacharia is currently a communications adviser at TMTG, the money-losing company that owns and runs Trump's boutique social media site. Before that, she worked for DHS in the public affairs office, where she was a deputy assistant secretary. Before that, she worked for political campaigns in swing states. She was also general counsel for Fix California, a political advocacy group founded by Ric Grenell. Zacharia also worked for an international law firm in Beijing for a few years and claims to speak Chinese. She has a law degree from Pepperdine University, a conservative Christian private institution.

In Feb. 2026, she wrote an op-ed in the New York Post about how she wore a MAGA hat in her gym class and bravely stood her ground when other women in the class asked her to remove it to avoid turning the gym into a partisan free-for-all rather than a place to exercise. That, and the photo of her in gym clothing, might have been what attracted Trump's attention to her. She also frequently appears on Fox News and Newsmax.

She is currently busy deleting many of her tweets, especially those where she called for habeas corpus to be suspended, for Trump to seize control of California, claimed that the COVID vaccine causes miscarriages, and that mifepristone was the chemical used in Nazi death camps. (V)

If Democrats Win the Senate, Schumer Will Have a Big Problem

Chuck Schumer may have a problem next year—and it is not the potential career-ending primary challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). If the Democrats win the Senate and they pick Schumer as their leader (which is not 100% certain since several Democratic Senate candidates may not vote for him), Democratic voters will expect him to get things done in Congress and he will be in charge of herding the cats. The problem is that at least half a dozen of the Democratic senators are likely 2028 presidential candidates and will all want to grandstand and showboat and won't fall in line doing what he wants.

Democratic Senators who are likely presidential (or vice presidential) candidates include the following (with a list of states they have recently visited):

• Cory Booker (NJ): (Nevada 2x, New Hampshire, South Carolina)
• Ruben Gallego (AZ): (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina)
• Mark Kelly (AZ): (Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina 2x)
• Chris Murphy (CT): (Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina)
• Elissa Slotkin (MI): (Iowa, Nevada)
• Chris van Hollen (MD): (Iowa, New Hampshire 2x)
• Raphael Warnock (GA): (Nevada 2x, New Hampshire)

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) has mostly stayed in Georgia campaigning, but he is surely aware of his potential as a candidate and his potential firsts. Just as John Kennedy was the youngest president ever elected (at 43) and first Catholic president, Ossoff would be the youngest president ever (at 41, beating Theodore Roosevelt, who became president at 42 when William McKinley was assassinated) and first Jewish president.

In addition to Schumer's problem getting all these guys to walk the party line on everything, he could also have a practical problem. If eight of his members are out barnstorming the country all the time, they will miss votes—and Republicans will force as many votes as possible, since few of their caucus members are likely to run for president. Actually getting 51 senators on the floor for votes regularly could be tricky, even if there are 52 or 53 or even 54 Democratic senators. (V)

AOC Is Carefully Weighing Her 2028 Options

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a lot of star power and has to decide what to do with it next cycle. Her most likely choices are one of these:

• Stay in the House (easy)
• Run for the Senate (medium)
• Shoot the moon and run for president (hard)

Many people are talking about AOC as a presidential candidate. She would be 39 on Inauguration Day, so she is old enough. However, getting the Democratic nomination against a giant field of highly qualified candidates (see above list) and beating them all would be no mean feat, especially since women are 0 for 2 running for president. She would probably have the progressive wing of the Democratic Party behind her, but that is maybe 30% of the primary electorate. She doesn't have a lot of gravitas and people would ask: How are you going to win Arizona, Michigan, and North Carolina? She would be an extreme long shot. She is surely aware that many Democrats want a straight white man as their candidate. Besides, only one person in history has gone from the House directly to the presidency, and that was James Garfield almost 150 years ago. It's a big jump. And note that even Garfield hedged his bets; on the day in 1880 he was elected to the White House, he had already been elected to the U.S. Senate by the Ohio legislature, and so had a fallback job available.

If AOC challenged Chuck Schumer for the 2028 Senate nomination, she would be the favorite. She is viewed more favorably than Schumer and led in at least one poll. If Schumer knew AOC was going to run, he might even retire, to avoid the embarrassment of losing a primary to such a young woman. Given her young age, she could serve a term or two in the Senate to gain more experience (e.g., foreign affairs) and then run for president.

AOC is obviously looking carefully at the latter two options. She has traveled all over the country with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and has seen large turnouts at their rallies. But she is also checking out the Senate option. She has been barnstorming upstate New York to get a better feeling of how she would do far from her Bronx-Queens district.

Her visit to Buffalo and Ithaca was nominally to help boost Democratic turnout in the midterms, but it also gave her a chance to meet voters and party officials who have never met her. In Buffalo, she met with Mayor Sean Ryan and held a press conference with him, which made the local news. She also visited a training session for activists who will try to get inactive voters to the polls in November. In Ithaca, she appeared at an apple festival with Rep. John Riley (D-NY). She also headlined a "Students vs. Billionaires" town hall. With Cornell University dominating the area, it was friendly territory for lefties like her.

AOC has said she hasn't made up her mind. If she runs for president, she might inherit Sanders' mantle as Lefty-in-Chief. But she would most likely fail to get the nomination. New York does not forbid running for the White House and the regular House at the same time, but voters tend to see trying to execute Plan A and Plan B at the same time as a lack of confidence. While she is not a shoo-in for the Senate, she is probably the favorite and could run for president in 2032 or 2036, depending on who wins in 2028. Campaigns for the Senate and presidency are very different so she will probably have to decide fairly early in the new year. (V)

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