Charlie Cook, the Cook Political Report's founder, went on ABC's This Week Sunday morning and agreed the House is gone. "The House has been kind of a done deal for a good while," he said. A year ago, he said, nobody could realistically see the Senate flipping; now it is "very realistic." He named the cause in one breath: "fuel prices, you know, gasoline, diesel, fuel, oil, fertilizer" and tariffs, landing the moment voters started paying attention. "It was almost like the bottom fell out suddenly."
He means diesel. AAA puts the national average at $6.47 a gallon on Sunday, 75 percent above the $3.69 of a year ago. The Energy Information Administration recorded $6.53 last Monday, a record, and a 43-cent jump in one week across the Midwest. AAA has regular gasoline at $4.48, its highest ever for late September.
Dan Pedersen farms 10,000 acres and feeds 12,000 cattle at Underwood, in western Iowa. He burns 800 gallons of diesel a day and told Omaha's ABC station it now costs him $75,000 a month more than last year, $150,000 over a two-month harvest. "I just wish they would get that deal settled in the Middle East," he said. "Another year of this and the economy and everything can't handle this."
That is the bill.
Then come the Trump voter with a combine, the Republicans who have stopped paying, and the number the Cook report now puts on November.
