With less than three weeks before the midterm elections, candidates had better know what they’ll say every day. Their battle plans should be well-defined by now, target voters in focus, resources well-deployed, staff and volunteers executing, everything hitting on every cylinder.
All campaigns, Republican and Democratic, are counting on party leaders to help shape national messages. For Republicans, that means President Trump, then GOP congressional leaders. While Democratic House and Senate leaders can’t compete with the White House megaphone, the party’s candidates expect them to help set the tone.
How are both sides doing? Let’s look at last week, starting with Republicans.
Last Monday, Oct. 5, Mr. Trump issued an executive order allowing long-haul truckers to use “dyed diesel.” This is diesel meant for off-road use by farmers in combines and tractors and for home heating. Dyed diesel doesn’t pay the 24-cent-a-gallon federal highway tax, since it powers equipment that isn’t driven on highways.
That sounded good to the untrained ear. But while truckers appreciate the gesture, most dyed diesel is already committed by fuel distributors to the farmers and ranchers who are their regular customers. Still, the president sounded as if he was doing something about “affordability,” the great 2026 watch word.
But then things went south. No big news for Republicans on Tuesday, but what little emerged was troubling. The president’s two top political operatives had traveled to Bosnia and Herzegovina to pick up extra income consulting for a Kremlin-backed party in the breakaway region that styles itself Republika Srpska. U.S. consultants of both parties have found foreign campaigns to be lucrative but generally pursue such business “off season,” not in the final days of a crucial American campaign.
On Wednesday the Journal broke the news that the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, asked a Republican donor to pay off $100,000 on her American Express card just before her Senate confirmation hearing in July 2025. This week she resigned.
On Thursday, the Pentagon announced the Fort Hood shooter, an Army officer who killed 13 on-base in 2009, will be executed by firing squad with his execution livestreamed.
That same day, the administration halted green-card applications for eight tech companies, including Microsoft and Adobe. Vice President JD Vancesingled out Microsoft, accusing it of replacing every worker it laid off “with 1½ foreign indentured servants.”
On Friday Mr. Trump announced he’d lift sanctions on Russian diesel, a move that may violate U.S. law. He then posted on Truth Social that diesel prices “will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” That’s very unlikely.
