Yesterday, I gave an overview of the shift in public opinion against Donald Trump and how it is dragging down Republicans running for re-election in Congress. (Nobody is even talking about the Republicans picking up new seats, just defending the ones they have.)
The reason for this turn in public opinion is pretty obvious. Republicans in Congress served as nothing more than rubber stamps for Trump’s agenda—and that agenda has resulted in a very visible disaster.
The Constitution and the Economy
The most immediate and noticeable disaster is the failure of Trump’s war against Iran, which started as an attempt to weaken the Iranian regime and ended with them controlling or threatening not one but three chokepoints of the global economy: the Strait of Hormuz at the entry to the Persian Gulf, the Bab al-Mandab Strait off of Yemen that controls access to the Suez Canal (and is now under the control of Iran’s Houthi allies), and the East-West Pipeline that bypasses those chokepoints to carry Saudi oil to the Red Sea.
I’ll have more to say soon about the failures of this war, which go far beyond that, but for now let’s just look at the part that matters most to voters. I don’t think the average American has enough strategic understanding to realize how badly the war has gone (and that’s part of the reason why it has gone so badly), but no one can avoid the economic result: Gasoline is hovering above $4.00 a gallon—much more in some parts of the country—while diesel fuel is setting records above $6.50 a gallon.
Notably, this is hitting rural Republican voters harder than anyone else.
The political fallout is landing in deep-red voting districts the hardest. Federal data shows these tend to be the places where diesel makes up the largest proportion of the overall fuel mix. This is especially the case in farming communities, where diesel powers the fuel-thirsty tractors and other machinery that the agriculture industry relies on.
The result:
Staunch conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace shared Wednesday on X that a GOP pollster has warned House candidates there that if they are in a district Republicans previously won by 15 points, they are now within the margin of error. If Republicans won by 10 points, the pollster warned the GOP House candidates, they may already be behind.
As an aside, I should note that things can still get much worse.
