Welcome to this weekend’s edition of the Surge, Slate’s political newsletter. Oh, you think it’s “bad” or “completely and blatantly illegal” that Donald Trump used taxpayer money to run a campaign ad celebrating his personality while the lyrics “love me” play repeatedly in the background? Looks like you’re suffering from Trump derangement syndrome, cowpoke.
We’re a little over a month away from the stupid midterm elections, and the Republicans are in disarray. They were specifically promised that the war in Iran would lead to no compromise! Susan Collins isn’t concerned about a major story that broke this week, but maybe she should be. Additionally, why do some Democrats continue to describe a Republican member of the New York House of Representatives as unbeatable? He may be with that attitude.
But first things first: if you have diesel at home, you could earn a pretty penny on Facebook Marketplace.
The week red state Republicans realized they were going to have to fight.
Everyone has understood for some time that this would be a Democratic-friendly election cycle. But this appears to be the week that this passive knowledge caused real panic among Republicans – in red states.
The war in Iran has driven up energy prices since it began. But it was the recent surge in diesel fuel prices at the end of the election campaign that plunged Republicans into an unprecedented panic. An increase in the price of diesel is not good for everyone who likes to eat or buy products, for example. But it’s particularly bad for large agricultural states, where margins have already been squeezed by tariffs and fertilizer prices. Indeed, one of the truly unusual features of the Trump administration has been the way the president has worked so specifically to make people’s lives difficult in places like, say, Iowa and Kansas.
Well, Iowa and Kansas have a lot of races this year, and the candidates suddenly look different. Rep. Ashley Hinson, running for Senate in Iowa against Democrat Josh Turek, said this week that “the war must end immediately and successfully,” while Iowa Republican Party Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks went further and actually vote end the war last week. All are competing in competitive races, and a poll this week showed Hinson trailing Turek by 8 points. This was a bit of an exception, but the race shouldn’t be particularly competitive at the start. In Kansas, meanwhile, Sen. Roger Marshall — who ran against Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton in an increasingly tight race — separated himself from the president by lambasting the behavior of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the state. Marshall continued to vote for the war in Iran, and Hamilton hammered him on it.
How far will this Red State incursion go? Already, national Republicans have all but given up on Senate races in purple states like Georgia and North Carolina because more and more money will have to be spent on defensive measures in Texas, Ohio, Alaska, Iowa and Kansas. Nebraska? Maybe South Carolina and Mississippi? As National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott told Republican senators this week, senators from deep red states need to run like they’re behind so that all resources can be allocated to the “record number of races being thrown” on the map.
Democrats shouldn’t get overly excited about winning, say, eight Senate seats. The Republicans still have the financial advantage, and their recent spending deluge should tighten things up a bit. Trump is going to resort to some tricks with diesel prices, like an export ban, which will be terrible policy but could provide relief for a hot second. And many undecided voters, while furious at Republicans, still view Democrats as impotent monsters. But this week? Marvel at the GOP panic. Marinate in it. It’s rich. And all this because of political choices – wars, customs tariffs – which were not necessary.
Will this story about Susan Collins and the scam defense entrepreneur be big?
Not each The Senate race is a vision of pure joy for Democrats. They still need to watch their backs in races where they have nominated candidates further to the left (Michigan, Minnesota, Maine) or where people might confuse the Republican candidate with his more popular sibling (New Hampshire). In Maine, for example, the Collins machine continues to engage in a tight race with Troy Jackson, and even led him in a New York Times poll released this week. (Others pointed to Jackson in front.)
However, on Tuesday, ProPublica published a highly controversial investigation into the Collins team’s relationship with Martin Kao, the former CEO of a Hawaiian defense company. Kao is now in federal prison after his business plan – buying off politicians with campaign donations in exchange for defense contracts that never came to fruition – was exposed. The story reveals that Collins helped secure company funds while Kao used shell companies to make large donations to Collins’ super PAC. The FBI was supposed to thoroughly investigate the situation until Trump took office, at which point FBI agents were either fired or reassigned to assist Homeland Security in the pervasive harassment of immigrants.
The Collins team presented the whole thing as a success, saying any notion of a pay-to-play system was “categorically false.” His strongest argument in response is that much of it relies on interviews Kao had with the FBI once he was already in prison and seeking escape, although ProPublica countered that it had independently verified many of his claims. (There are also some not-so-great emails from members of Collins’ orbit.) But even if there’s no hard camera footage of Kao giving Collins burlap sacks full of cash, there’s undoubtedly a story that she was duped into delivering federal dollars to a scammer.
One quote that didn’t make it into our article on Collins earlier this year, but came back to me this week, was from former Senator Roy Blunt: “I can’t think of an assignment that Susan has ever requested that turned out to be a political problem for her.” This may no longer be the case.
Is Mike Lawler really a brilliant political force of such magnitude that he cannot be defeated?
Last week, retired moderate Maine Democrat Jared Golden, who is really soaring as he nears his exit from office, endorsed New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler for re-election, citing Lawler’s ability to work with the other side to pass legislation. What caught our attention on this issue was the reaction of a House Democrat, who told the Washington Sun that they didn’t mind Golden’s support because “I don’t think Lawler is beatable.” And This caught our attention because we read the same line from a “senior House Democrat” in an Axios article last month, almost verbatim.
Well, these House Democrats — or that House Democrat who really likes to deliver the same line to multiple reporters — suffer from serious trust issues, because: what? Of course, Lawler is pretty good at maintaining his individual brand, either by giving additional tax breaks to his constituents under last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act or by speaking out against bigots within his party. And, of course, Lawler was one of only three House Republicans to win districts in 2024 carried by Kamala Harris. All of this is a testament to his talent, but it’s also a sign that he would be directly under a blue wave if it were to crash. As old Bert Camus would say: You have to imagine Lawler beatable.
Republicans have invested a lot of money to defend Lawler’s seat, and one wonders why Democrats haven’t supported her opponent, Cait Conley. (Conley is arguably the purest distillation of DCCC recruiting ever: West Point. Military. Harvard. MIT. National Security Council.) But part of the reason they haven’t kept up is because the Democrats… don’t have as much money. money.
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Gn bussni
