Category: Elections

Barely five weeks before November’s midterm elections, Senate Republicans are rushing to pass more legislation that they can run on as polling shows Democrats within striking distance of retaking the chamber.

The Senate is expected to vote on legislation this week meant to protect consumers from high electricity costs caused in part by the data center building boom. And some Republicans are pushing to take up other bills to address voters’ frustrations with the cost of living.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) decided against sending senators home early last week to campaign, opting instead to keep the Senate in session to try to bolster Republicans’ legislative record. This week is the last that the Senate is scheduled to be in session before Election Day.

Republicans are confronting the once-unthinkable prospect that they could lose the Senate. Democrats are running competitively even in some states that President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024, giving the party a shot at picking up the four seats they need to recapture the chamber.

Almost no Republican is in more danger of losing his seat than Sen. Jon Husted (Ohio), who introduced the data center bill that Republicans are set to take up.

Former Democratic senator Sherrod Brown, who is challenging Husted, has spent millions of dollars on ads attacking Husted over his support for data centers, which the ads blame for “causing electric bills to spike by thousands of dollars.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a memo last month that the ads are effective, describing data centers as an “anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.”

Sixty-nine percent of likely voters in Ohio say data centers — enormous warehouses filled with servers that power the artificial intelligence boom and the rest of the internet — are mostly bad for home energy costs, according to a Bowling Green State University/YouGov poll conducted this month.

Husted has defended his record on data centers and criticized Brown for supporting them in the past. He described his bill as a way to “show the American people that we’re serious about driving down electric prices and making life more affordable for them” — and he almost dared Democrats to block it.

“If Senate Democrats want to be the lone obstacle to passage, then shame on them,” he told reporters. “That shows that they don’t really care about affordability.”

It is not clear whether Husted’s bill will pass.

The House approved it overwhelmingly, but Sen. Martin Heinrich (D, N.M.) blocked Husted from fast-tracking its passage this month, arguing that it did not go far enough. Heinrich sought to pass his own bill to force data centers to shoulder the costs of upgrading the electric grid, which Republicans blocked.

Husted’s bill does not take full effect for two years and would not bring down electricity prices before the midterms. Some Democrats have argued that it would do little to address affordability at all.

“Senator Husted’s bill is a fraud,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) told reporters last week. “It’s voluntary. No company has to do it.”

Republicans say Democrats are just trying to deny them victories. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R., Ohio) accused Democrats of blocking Husted’s bill “so they can just put up another TV ad to say that electricity prices are high so that they can win an election.”

Senate Republicans have spent much of the past two weeks working to pass legislation from Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) to overhaul regulation of college sports. Cruz has argued the bill is crucial to “protect an American institution that millions of people love,” but some Republicans have groused that it is hardly the most pressing issue for the party to tackle right before the midterms.

“With gas at over $4 a gallon, a persistent war with Iran, $40 trillion in debt, the Senate has decided that the most urgent thing now is to dictate how college sports are run from Washington,” Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor.

Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) said he was prepared to support the bill if he secures an amendment vote but argued it is not a priority for voters, describing it as a way “to make the football coaches happy.”

“I haven’t met a single person on the campaign trail, when they lie down to sleep and can’t, who are worried about the football coaches,” Kennedy told reporters.

Husted is not the only Republican senator facing a tough race who has pushed to pass legislation that can be campaigned on before heading home.

Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), who is seeking a sixth term in a Democratic-leaning state, has pressed Senate Republican leadership to take up a bipartisan bill to force insurers to cap the cost of insulin at $35.

Another vulnerable Republican, Sen. Dan Sullivan (Alaska), tried to pass legislation last week meant to protect salmon in his state. He was blocked by Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), who said he needed more time to seek feedback from fishermen in his state.

Husted and other Republicans are campaigning on the tax and domestic policy bill that Trump signed into law last year, which cut taxes on tips and overtime. But some Senate Republicans have pushed for months to do more to address voters’ affordability concerns.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said he had urged Senate leadership to take up the insulin bill, along with legislation to suspend the federal gas tax and other bills to make life easier for working families.

“My view is that ought to be our sole focus,” Hawley said. “If we’re not going to do that, it’s not clear to me what we’re doing here.”

Rep. Ashley Hinson (R), who is facing a tight race for an open Senate seat in Iowa, last week called on the House to return to Washington to vote on suspending the federal gas tax as well as other steps to reduce fuel prices. The House adjourned earlier this month and has no plans to return before Election Day.

Thune has faulted Democrats for obstructing his party’s agenda. Republicans and Democrats have spent months negotiating over legislation to overhaul the federal permitting process, which could bring down energy costs by making it easier to build power lines and other infrastructure. Thune said the Senate could take up such a bill before the midterms if the two sides were to reach a deal, but he acknowledged Thursday that it would not happen, which he blamed on Democrats.

“While they may acknowledge the need for permitting reform, what they really care about is denying Republicans another legislative win” ahead of the midterms, Thune said on the Senate floor.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Heinrich, the Democrats leading permitting negotiations, said Friday that they wanted to give senators more time to review the legislation and warned that trying to pass it before the midterms could kill the bill.

“We are talking about major changes to how America builds energy and infrastructure,” they said in a statement. “Getting that right has to matter more than election-year deadlines.”

First came a proposal to permit tariff-free beef imports, but that immediately angered America’s farmers and ranchers.

Then came a plan to ban exports of domestic diesel fuel, but that met with pushback from major oil companies.

In between, President Donald Trump pitched the idea of simply cutting $5,000 checks to adult Americans frustrated, polls show, by high food and gas prices — if the GOP maintains control of Congress. But that idea, too, has come under fire, even from some Republican lawmakers concerned about the potential hit to the budget deficit.

With just five weeks until Election Day, the White House has thrown out multiple ideas for combating persistent inflation, which has outpaced wage growth. But experts say it is unclear whether Trump can execute any policy that would placate inflation-weary voters and help the GOP maintain control of Congress.

“These are symptoms of panic in the administration about problems that they have in part created,” said David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Inflation has been running over the Federal Reserve’s target rate since 2021, but an array of Trump policies have fed the problem, economists say. Trump’s decision to join Israel in going to war with Iran has disrupted the global oil supply, leading to elevated energy rates. His tariffs have produced higher prices for some imported goods. And his administration’s immigration crackdown has made low-cost labor harder to find, keeping price pressures on domestic companies high.

Consumer frustration is reflected in polling. The gap has steadily widened between voters who approve of and disapprove of Trump’s performance as president, and 73% of Americans said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy in a recent poll conducted by SSRS for CNN. Only 27% approved — his lowest approval rating on the issue ever recorded by the survey.

Against that backdrop, Trump has floated a parade of ideas for cutting prices.

“President Trump pledged to lower costs and raise real wages for everyday Americans, and the Administration continues to rigorously evaluate every option on the table to deliver,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.

On top of the political hurdles, however, these policies have been “small in the grand scheme of things … if they’re helpful at all,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “So it’s not like it’s moving the dial on the affordability crisis.”

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a conservative-leaning think tank, said it’s not uncommon for politicians to try to bring down prices in the run-up to elections, especially when their party’s control of Washington is at risk.

President Joe Biden did the same ahead of the 2022 midterms, notably by calling for a federal gas tax holiday and releasing millions of barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to bring down sky-high gas prices.

“This whack-a-mole with particular prices is something the Biden guys tried,” said Holtz-Eakin, who was a senior economic adviser to President George W. Bush and the 2008 presidential campaign of then-Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.). “It doesn’t solve the economic problem, and it doesn’t seem particularly politically successful.”

For Trump, time is running out, said Rebecca Patterson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The U.S. economy is so big and so complex that improving affordability “is simply not something anyone can do in a month,” Patterson said. “Actions taken today might help in the medium and longer term. But between now and the election, the best you can hope for is that voters appreciate that you’re trying.”

One idea the administration has executed is buying back Treasury bonds. But so far, the payoff has been minimal.

In part because of the competition for cash from massive private-sector spending on artificial intelligence, investors are demanding higher interest rates for Treasury bonds. Higher bond yields, in turn, raise interest rates for consumer loans such as mortgages. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 7% last week for the first time since January 2025.

In August, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced he would intervene in the bond market by buying back longer-term Treasury bonds to try to slow the rise in yields. That has not yet worked in bringing down yields, though Bessent contended in a recent congressional hearing that it is nonetheless a success because “we then proceeded to have the two most successful Treasury auctions that we’ve had in 20 years.”

While Bessent was wrestling with the bond market, Trump decided to tackle meat prices.

In late August, the president signed a proclamation that rolled back tariffs on foreign beef trimmings for 90 days in an effort to boost imports and lower ground beef prices, which have risen almost 25% since the beginning of Trump’s second term.

But that drew rare pushback from farm-state Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Sen. Pete Ricketts (Neb.), Sen. Roger Marshall (Kan.) and Rep. Ashley Hinson (Iowa), who is running in a competitive Senate election in her state.

The lawmakers argued that a flood of cheap foreign beef would undermine American farmers and ranchers, who are already struggling with high fuel, grain, and fertilizer prices due to the Iran war and other factors.

Trump issued a follow-up executive order aimed at helping ranchers, and the Agriculture Department announced new policies aimed at supporting American beef producers. The administration is now reportedly considering reversing course on beef imports — though the White House has denied that.

Then came the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, where Trump made his biggest pitch yet: If Republicans keep both the House and Senate on Nov. 3, Trump said, he would give every adult American a $5,000 dividend to spend within the United States.

Some Republican lawmakers applauded the idea, but others were skeptical, saying the checks not only could exacerbate inflation but also could increase historically large budget deficits. The proposal could cost more than $1 trillion at a time when concern is growing about the nation’s outsize debt, which recently surpassed $40 trillion.

Public interest groups blasted the idea; Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the left-leaning consumer watchdog Public Citizen, called it an “explicit and desperate attempt to buy votes.”

And voters largely have not been swayed: A YouGov poll released earlier this month found that 64% of U.S. adults felt they would probably or definitely not receive the dividend if Republicans were to win the election.

So far, there have been few signs of interest on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers would have to draft legislation to authorize the checks and vote to approve it.

Last week, after diesel prices hit a record high, Trump and Bessent announced a new idea for tackling soaring fuel prices: a ban on diesel exports. Their theory was that a ban would boost the diesel supply for American consumers, lowering the price at the pump.

Several Republican candidates in competitive congressional races supported the idea. But major oil companies and Energy Secretary Chris Wright objected, arguing that such a policy would incentivize companies to lower diesel production, which would further raise fuel prices.

By midweek, the fate of the diesel export ban, too, seemed uncertain: Wright said any new limits on diesel exports were likely to be voluntary.