This year’s average U.S. gasoline prices on Thanksgiving are expected to be at their highest level ever for the holiday and beat the previous record from Thanksgiving of 2012, according to estimates from fuel-savings app GasBuddy.
Despite the record-high average gasoline prices, 20% more Americans plan to travel by car for the holiday weekend, compared to 2021, especially after Covid precautions have significantly eased compared to the previous two years, according to GasBuddy.
Moreover, gasoline prices have dropped a lot from the record highs in June.
Per GasBuddy estimates, the national average is projected to stand at $3.68 a gallon on Thanksgiving Day – nearly 30 cents higher than last year and over 20 cents higher than the previous record of $3.44/gal set in 2012.
The number of Americans traveling over the Thanksgiving weekend this year is up from 32% last year to 38%, a nearly 20% rise, according to GasBuddy’s Thanksgiving survey. A total of 21% said they had chosen not to drive due to high fuel prices.
Most respondents in the survey indicated they would travel less than an hour away.
“While 21% say high fuel prices are impacting their travel, surprisingly fewer are citing high gas prices this year (46% vs. 51% in 2021) for impacting their travel plans,” GasBuddy said.
The majority of respondents traveling for Thanksgiving, 73%, will not be crossing state lines to do so.
“It has been a dizzying year at the pump, with motorists likely feeling nauseous not from the eggnog, but from the roller coaster ride at the pump with record gasoline prices earlier this year, which have fallen significantly since mid-summer,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.
“Americans, however, are proving that while we’ll openly complain about high gas prices, most of us aren’t deterred from taking to the highways to observe Thanksgiving with those that matter most to us, especially as precautions from the pandemic have eased.”
On Monday, De Haan said he expected that in the next ten days, the national average price of gasoline would fall to its lowest level since March. The number of states with below-$3 average gas prices will rise to 5 by the end of the month, he added.
FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Faces ‘Trip’ For Questioning In US
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is facing the possibility of a ‘trip’ to the US (not an ‘extradition’ – as Bloomberg puts it), as US and Bahamian authorities have been discussing the possibility of bringing him to America for questioning over this firm’s devastating implosion, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.
Conversations between law-enforcement officials in the two countries have recently intensified, as they probe what led up to cryptocurrency firm FTX’s meltdown. He has reportedly been cooperating with Bahamian authorities, according to one source.
Since FTX began its tailspin last week, prosecutors and regulators in the US and the Bahamas have opened probes. Bahamian police interviewed Bankman-Fried on Saturday.
Bankman-Fried has apologized repeatedly to FTX’s customers on Twitter. He also said on the social media platform Friday that he was “shocked to see things unravel the way they did” and that he would seek to provide a complete detailing of what happened once he had a better understanding of the situation. -Bloomberg
In a Tuesday tweet, Bankman-Fried said that he’s “meeting in-person with regulators and working with the teams to do what we can for customers,” and that his goals are to “clean up and focus on transparency,” and “make customers whole.”
14) My goal:
a) Clean up and focus on transparency
b) Make customers whole
Nickel Jumps As Tesla-Backed Miner Sparks Supply Fears
Nickel prices jumped Tuesday on the news of production setbacks at the troubled Goro nickel mine, which has one of the world’s largest deposits and is partially owned by Trafigura Group and backed by Tesla Motors, reported Bloomberg.
Goro is located in the South Pacific island French territory of New Caledonia. The mine has been forced to curtail production following a leak from its tailings dam — an earth-fill embankment dam used to store byproducts after separating the ore from mining waste.
A spokesperson from owner Prony Resources said the Goro Mine reported a “limited release of salt-laden liquid” following torrential rains in August. Corrective measures required by local authorities reveal nickel output would be reduced in the fourth quarter.
The nickel market has seen wild price swings in the last two sessions following reports of an explosion at a nickel factory in Indonesia on Monday, which sent prices skyrocketing 15%, though prices retreated after the owner of the operation denied reports.
Prices on the London Metal Exchange jumped as high as 7.5% to $31k per ton on Tuesday, hitting the highest level since May.
Nickel prices trading on the LME have seen increased volatility. In March, the LME halted trading for a week after prices soared 250% in two sessions.
Brazilian miner Vale SA previously owned Goro. It was sold last year to Prony — a group comprising Trafigura, Agio Global, and the New Caledonian government.
The good news is that “minimum quantities required by our customer contracts will be met, and we expect to be at full capacity again shortly,” Prony said.
Global supply tightness for the battery-critical making metal comes as electric-vehicle demand soars. This will undoubtedly keep the costs of EVs out of reach for the average person.
According to a report from Politico, the Biden administration has been reassuring Ukraine that peace talks with Russia don’t need to happen anytime soon after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said this winter will provide an opportunity for diplomacy.
Milley said last week that Russia and Ukraine might recognize that victory “is maybe not achievable through military means, and therefore you need to turn to other means.” He expects fighting will slow down this winter, and the moment for peace talks could be “seized.”
Citing unnamed US and Ukrainian officials, the POLITICO report said that US officials have conveyed to Ukraine that Washington was not trying to undercut Kyiv’s stated war goals of driving Russia out of all the territory it has captured. The US also said that just because there may be a pause in fighting this winter, that doesn’t mean peace talks need to happen.
While Milley is calling for peace talks, other high-level US officials are against the idea, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The Politico report said that Sullivan’s National Security Council is most resistant to the idea of talks, although there are a few aides on the NSC pushing for diplomacy.
The report said that there is a “broad sense” within the Pentagon that the winter will provide a chance to reach a political settlement and that senior US military officials don’t believe Ukraine can achieve its war aims, which include expelling Russia from Crimea. But so far, these views have not had an impact on President Biden or his most senior staff.
The talk of diplomacy comes after Russia withdrew from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, pulling all of its forces from the west bank of the Dnieper River. Pentagon officials said that the situation in the Kherson region is an example of the tough fight ahead, as it will be difficult for Ukraine to launch an offensive across the river.
“Why not start talking about [peace talks] before you throw another 100,000 lives into the abyss?” one US official said in comments to Politico.
While many elements of the Biden administration are resisting the idea of pushing for talks between Ukraine and Russia, there has been an increase in dialogue between Washington and Moscow.
On Monday, CIA Director William Burns met with his Russian counterpart, although the White House stressed the meeting was focused on warnings over the use of nuclear weapons, not a negotiation over Ukraine.
In what she has called a David versus Goliath battle, New York real estate lawyer Bobbie Anne Cox sued Governor Kathleen Hochul for issuing directives mandating quarantine for people exposed to or infected with highly contagious diseases such as COVID-19. The directives, dubbed “quarantine camp regulations,” have been compared to laws that relocated Japanese during World War II without due process. Cox won the lawsuit on the grounds that Hochul’s regulation was unconstitutional.
In a recent interview on Epoch TV’s American Thought Leaders, Cox told host Jan Jekielek that it’s crucial Americans learn about the U.S. Constitution so that they can prevent similar acts by state and federal governments.
“The constitution is not perfect, but it’s brilliant,” Cox said. Schools should require learning about the U.S. Constitution, “from the little kids all the way up through high school, into college. The constitution was written to keep the government in check. The constitution wasn’t written to keep the people in check.”
Our founding fathers came to this continent fleeing tyranny, Cox said. “They wrote the constitution in such a manner that if it’s followed, there wouldn’t be tyranny on these shores, ever. Yet, here we are, 250 years later, and we’re fighting tyranny.”
It is tyrannical for a government to take power to which it is not entitled, Cox explained. During the pandemic, state and federal governments gave themselves powers the constitution did not give them.
State governors are part of the executive branch of government. As such, she said, “they’re supposed to enforce laws, and their agencies beneath them are supposed to help them enforce laws. They’re not supposed to make laws.”
When a governor such as Hochul takes on powers that properly belong to the legislature, “that’s tyranny,” Cox reiterated.
“The attitude is kind of like, ‘Well, we know we can’t do this, but we’re going to do it anyway.’ And then the theory is, ‘Catch me if you can.’”
Unconstitutional mandates and regulations have been thrust upon the public, Cox said, because American citizens don’t know their rights. “I think if people understood what their rights are, they would say, ‘Hold on a second, you can’t do that.”
“In the history of mankind, no government has ever taken power from the people, and then just voluntarily given it back.”
Nonetheless, “the people have to demand it back,” Cox said. “The people won’t demand it back unless they know that they have the right to that power. So I think there needs to be an education process in the United States so that people understand, ‘Oh, these are my rights.’”
The Executive Branch Cannot Legislate
At the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns, former Governor Andrew Cuomo was given emergency powers by the New York legislature to implement “directives.” Those emergency powers, according to Cox, essentially gave him legislative powers.
“The legislative branch can’t delegate their lawmaking power to another branch of government, but they did, and for a whole year, Cuomo had this power … He then passed it on to his commissioner of health,” said Cox.
After Cuomo stepped down in August 2021 and Hochul became interim governor, she continued the regulations despite criticism that she was sidestepping the legislature. When Cox learned about this, she was impelled to sue in order to stop the government overreach.
Cox sees this type of control by the governor as tyrannical and “wholly unconstitutional” for many reasons, including the fact that the New York legislature rejected the quarantine rule in a bill years before.
“It’s the story of a tyrannical governor and her department of health, doing something that they want to do, but the people don’t want them to do it. And the people’s representatives in the New York state senate and the assembly don’t want them to do it.”
The quarantine camp regulation was based on a bill that was proposed in 2015 by New York state assemblyman Nick Perry (D-Brooklyn) during the Ebola outbreak. The regulation was rejected by the state legislature and withdrawn from consideration, said Cox.
After Cuomo resigned, through a simple vote, Hochul and her advisors issued the directive that ultimately gave the governor and the New York Department of Health the power to lock up anyone they deemed contagious.
“They could have locked you up in your home, or they could have removed you from your home and locked you into a facility of their choosing,” said Cox. There was no restriction on age, proof of sickness or exposure, or time limit to the quarantine.
“There was nothing in the regulation that would allow you to try to negotiate your way out of this,” added Cox, and the regulation does not follow either state or U.S. constitutions because it does not lay out the rights of the person forced into quarantine.
“In the judge’s decision, he actually said [that] this regulation gives lip service to due process,” said Cox. “‘You mention it, but you don’t actually have any due process built in there.’”
“Involuntary detention is a severe deprivation of individual liberty, far more egregious than other health safety measures, such as requiring mask wearing at certain venues,” the court’s opinion read. “Involuntary quarantine may have far-reaching consequences such as loss of income [or employment] and isolation from family.”
The governor’s regulation also conflicted with section 2120 of New York’s public health law, a longstanding regulation. “That tells you how you quarantine somebody if they’re a public health threat,” Cox said. However, the existing law contains multiple due process protections, beginning with a requirement to prove that the individual in question has the disease.
Having worked with clients in property cases against local and state governments, Cox recognized that the government’s mandates were illegal. She said she knew that two weeks of lockdown would not end there.
“I also said to myself, this is completely unconstitutional. He can’t do this. He can’t force people to shut their businesses and stay home,” Cox said.
She immediately started speaking out about the illegitimacy of the lockdowns. She was bombarded by business owners and landlords asking her if the forced closures and rent moratorium were legal, and what they could do to fight back.
“We were seeing small businesses, landlords, people who were just getting decimated by the government.”
Cox started a YouTube channel explaining the rights that the Constitution ensures, but the platform removed her videos. She then moved the channel to Rumble.
Before moving forward with her lawsuit against Hochul, Cox wrestled with the decision to put her business and livelihood on hold. She took the case, convinced that the type of governmental overreach it hoped to stop would spread like “cancer” if not checked.
Getting Ahead of Hochul’s Regulation
Cox did not want to wait until the regulation went into effect and the public was injured by it, so she thought creatively about how to sue and prove the regulation was unconstitutional, she said.
Cox considers herself a Democrat but worked with Republican lawmakers because she believes government overreach is not a partisan issue.
“I’m actually a Democrat … In my mind, this is not a political thing. This is a human rights issue. This is a constitutional issue … This is about being an American, and something people have really forgotten. It’s not people’s fault. I think it’s because we just really don’t teach this in school anymore.”
She asked Senator George Borrello, Assemblyman Chris Tague, and Assemblyman Mike Lawler to join the suit. “They said, ‘Absolutely. We believe in this; we’re going to do it.’”
Ultimately, Cox proved the unconstitutionality of the quarantine camp regulation, but there were many challenges along the way.
As the Republican party considers its return to power on Capitol Hill with a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives, it should consider leaders who have the proper self-discipline, political experience and operational background to guide the party during this time of significant political unrest at home and great power competition abroad. Simply put, with the issues of economic recession, and the erosion law and order at home, and the policy of peace through strength for challenges abroad, as well as when factoring into account the fact that the newer, younger membership of the House on both sides of the aisle includes so many veterans of the recent two decades long Global War On Terror, the Republican House leadership team would be well served to include a veteran amongst its ranks to provide the unique perspective associated with that experience and background.
With the recovery of a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives there will be significant changes in the conservative leadership team in the House. Kevin McCarthy of California, who served as Majority Whip during John Boehner’s term as speaker and then majority leader during Paul Ryan’s tenure, will presumably assume the speaker’s gavel after leading the minority party through the past six years of Democratic Party rule, although there are signs of unrest in the ranks due to disappointments at the polls this past week.
Steve Scalise of Louisiana has served as McCarthy’s whip and loyal deputy over the past six years, including during the painful period following his near assassination from a gunshot wound from a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2017. Scalise will almost certainly be elevated to the role of majority leader as McCarthy mounts the rostrum at the center of the well of the House. This will leave the majority whip’s position open at the beginning of a Congress where every Republican vote will be needed. This will require a strong, disciplined hand at the whip.
It must also be noted, and without prejudice, that neither McCarthy nor Scalise have served in the military. Additionally, neither of them has served on the House Armed Services, Intelligence, Appropriations, Foreign Affairs or Veterans Affairs committees that deal with the issues of national security or their adjacencies. McCarthy’s focus has been largely on the Financial Services Committee while Scalise’s area of expertise has been found within the Energy and Commerce Committee. These are important roles, but they also highlight the fact that both men would be well served to have a colleague in the majority whip’s office who is intimately familiar with the nation’s national security challenges.
The competition for the whip position has already commenced and the candidates overall are strong, well-qualified, and respected amongst the conference.
Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who served as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee through the last election cycle, lacks military or broader national security experience. He worked as a lawyer prior to entering the state legislature and entered the House in 2019. In that capacity he has served, like McCarthy, on the Financial Services Committee. Emmer is a solid fiscal conservative who has consistently sought to rein in government spending. Unfortunately, this pursuit caused him to vote against several critical nationalsecurity bills that sought to expand defense spending as well as protect the nation’s cybersecurity workforce. These votes as well as his rather unique opposition to President Trump’s reimposition of an economic embargo on Cuba suggests that his approach to national security remains more ideological than pragmatic, and diverges from previous eras of great power competition. Overall, he approaches national security with a lawyer’s legalistic eye rather than a veteran’s instinct for the terrain.
Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia currently serves as chief deputy whip for the Republican conference and would normally be seen as the natural successor to Scalise. Ferguson, a dentist, entered the House after a hard-fought election and has served on the powerful Ways and Means Committee since. While Ferguson has been a strong supporter of both military modernization and expansion, aside from a “no” vote on the 2021 NDAA, he also lacks service on one of the relevant national security associated committees in the House and the real-world experience that comes with previous active duty in the military. His elevation to the whip position would leave the House without anyone with the fingerspitzengefühl feel for the national security challenges facing the nation.
This leaves Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana as the last remaining contestant for the whip position.
For transparency’s sake, I should say that Banks represents the district where I grew up, although I have not lived there in nearly forty years, but my people know his people, and that matters. Additionally, we are both Navy veterans, and when we see each other, we share more than a few sea stories.
Banks served in the Indiana state legislature and in the naval reserve, deploying as a logistician to Afghanistan, prior to entering the House in 2017. Since then, he has been elevated to the chair of the Republican Study Committee, the internal think-tank for Minority Leader McCarthy and a font of new ideas. Banks serves on the Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs committees, as well as the Education and Labor Committee, where he has taken a direct and focused interest in strengthening our national security and taking care of our veterans’ community.
Banks has taken a deep interest in the legislative process. It is one thing to vote for a larger Navy, but it is another to author a resolution to build a 426-ship fleet with specific numbers of types of ships assigned to specific strategic objectives. In addition, Banks has either authored or co-sponsored legislation expressly focused on the strategic threat posed by China.
It must be admitted that Banks, in his capacity as the chair of the Republican Study Committee has earned a reputation as a partisan, but the whip position is also a partisan position. However, he has in the past demonstrated a willingness to reach across the aisle, especially when working with fellow former military members to craft real alternative approaches to our nation’s future defense. He and his staff also have built a reputation for rolling up their sleeves and doing the hard work of crafting real legislation. He is a man of disciplined thought and action, as many veterans are.
The Republican Party is assuredly positioned to return to leadership in the House next year, but it will have only a narrow majority and it will be confronted with many key issues challenging the nation. Jim Banks, with his domestic experience on the Education and Labor Committee, as well as his service on the Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs committees, would substantively add to the Republican House leadership’s policy breadth and depth.
Banks has proven that he can think, act, speak, and lead, and would bring the pragmatic solutions of the Midwest farm country he represents to the House leadership team. Additionally, his addition to the House leadership would be a powerful nod of acknowledgment to the 70-plus veterans who serve in the lower chamber from both parties, a vast majority of whom are young and have served in front line positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House Republicans should not pass on the opportunity to place a veteran in leadership.
Australia’s Rail Network Paralyzed After Train Derailment, Flooding, May Cause Supply Chain Chaos
A freight train derailment and flooding have paralyzed vital transportation networks, completely cutting off Perth and Adelaide from Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported dozens of shipping containers scattered across the tracks when a freight train derailed in Victoria’s west on Monday.
Footage from the incident area shows at least 20 shipping containers piled on top of each other and water beneath the tracks. The location of the crash was about 56 miles from Melbourne. There’s reason to believe months of heavy might have led to track failure.
The crash has broader implications for the country’s transportation network, as ABC explained:
“It is now blocking the rail line between Melbourne and Adelaide, cutting off Adelaide from the Port of Melbourne.”
The national broadcaster then pointed out on a map that another critical rail line called Broken Hill was out of order due to heavy flooding, which means:
“No trains are able to go east to west in the whole country. We were hanging by a single thread, which has now been severed.”
Here’s a map showing the east-west train connection severed.
ABC suggests supply chain misery could move even higher as the east-west train lines were already congested before the weather-related disasters.
The east-west train lines are, according to government statistics, the busiest freight lines in the country. They carry all sorts of goods from Adelaide and Perth to Sydney and Melbourne.
The link between Adelaide and the Port of Melbourne is especially important. Many container ships are extremely large and don’t stop in Adelaide. So South Australia relies on goods being unloaded in Melbourne and brought along the rails. It is a 12-hour journey, usually.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said it would take time to rebuild the rail line, a possible indication that supply chain disruptions are imminent.
“El Nino and La Nina are naturally occurring climate patterns and humans have no direct ability to influence their onset, intensity or duration.”
What’s likely to happen is all freight that would typically be hauled on rail networks will have to switch to the road, and even then, there will be logistical issues due to a limited supply of trucking availabilities.
UN Calls For Russia To Pay War Reparations: A Breakdown Of The Vote
On Monday the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for Russia to pay war reparations for its invasion of Ukraine, now nine months in. This is to include the billions of dollars in damage and destruction, as well as reparations for loss of life.
The UN resolution states that the Russian Federation “must bear the legal consequences of all its internationally wrongful acts, including making reparation for injury, including any damage, caused by such acts.”
It further seeks to establish “an international mechanism for reparation for damage, loss or injury” as a result of the war, and further calls for an “international register” to document evidence and claims of “damage, loss or injury” to Ukrainians and public buildings and entities.
In a Monday night video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the UN measure, saying: “The reparations that Russia will have to pay… are now part of the international legal reality.”
Western officials have from near the start of the invasion floated the idea of using seized Russian assets abroad due to sanctions enforcement to create a reparations fund for rebuilding Ukraine.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said Russia stands “categorically against” the proposal, adding that Moscow would do “everything possible” to stop the West from seizing its frozen international reserves or “plundering” them to pay for reparations to Ukraine.
The draft resolution passed in the UNGA with a clear majority and will now proceed to the next stage (a Generally Assembly plenary, likely next month).
Out of 193 members…
94 countries voted in favor
14 against
73 nations abstained
The breakdown of how countries voted is along familiar geopolitical fault lines…
Member states voting “no” (or a position seen by the West as “in favor of Russia”) …
The Bahamas
Belarus
Central African Republic
China
Cuba
North Korea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Islamic Republic of Iran
Mali
Nicaragua
Russian Federation
Syrian Arab Republic
Zimbabwe
Below: the majority of countries (in green) voted “yes” – while many abstained…
Notably India was an absention.
The UN website described the words of Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya as follows, “The Ambassador outlined the impact of the Russian war on his country, including bombings targeting residential buildings and infrastructure, the demolition of nearly half of the power grid and utilities, massive displacement, and atrocities such as murder, rape, torture and forced deportations.”
In considering all of the above war atrocities, one wonders, where was the big Western push at the UN to make Washington pay war reparations over the 2003 “shock and awe” regime change invasion of Iraq, which by some estimates killed up to one million people?
Bankman-Fried Trying To Raise Fresh Capital As Bankruptcy Lawyers Reveal More Than One Million Creditors
We have been waiting for the FTX bankruptcy docket to add anything more than merely procedural filings (or any filings for that matter), and certainly the so-called First Day filings which should lay out what really happened at the now bankrupt exchange-cum-hedge fund, but the only thing we have gotten so far is this: just two entries in the docket for a case which the entire world is closely following.
And while the criminal mastermind behind FTX, Bankman-Fried, should at least be doing everything he can to explain where the billion in client funds vaporized to, as he promised…
11) I’ll get to what happened. But for now, let’s talk about where we are today.
… at least until such time as he is finally arrested (which Elon Musk said will never happen because he is such a prominent Democratic donor), he appears to have little desire to do the right thing, and instead has been trying to salvage an unfixable situation and according to the WSJ, the 2nd largest democrat donor still thinks that he can raise enough money to make users whole.
Bankman-Fried, alongside a few remaining employees, spent the past weekend calling around in search of commitments from investors to plug a shortfall of up to $8 billion in the hopes of repaying FTX’s customers, the WSJ sources said. It wasn’t clear if any proceeds from such fundraising would go into his personal bank account, nor was it clear if he was merely calling other fugitive criminals such as Jho Low who made billions by robbing Malaysia blind with the help of Goldman Sachs, or is simply hoping to find even bigger idiots than his current roster of “erudite” investors.
The WSJ goes on to redundantly notes that the “efforts to cover that shortfall have so far been unsuccessful.” The paper also couldn’t determine what SBF is offering in return for any potential cash infusion, or whether any investors have committed. To be sure, the last thing on SBF’s mind is to transfer some of his well-hidden offshore funds to make those customers who trusted him whole.
Before the chapter 11 filing, Bankman-Fried had spoken to companies including rival crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken, plus hedge funds and venture capital investors in the hope of a bailout, according to people familiar with those talks. His largest rival, Binance, agreed briefly to buy FTX, before backing out.
The amount needed to make FTX solvent would likely be multiples of the $1.9 billion the company raised during its existence. FTX’s most recent funding round was in January, when it raised $400 million from a long list of Silicon Valley and Wall Street names, including Tiger Global and SoftBank Group Corp.
In separate news, FTX’s bankruptcy lawyers said the case could involve more than one million creditors: that means there will be a lot of angry people when the Democrat-controlled DOJ announces it has no plans to press charges against one of the most generous (and criminal of course) Democrat donors in history. Because the last thing anyone wants is to tie the money laundering loose ends between Democrats, Ukraine and crypto fund flows over the past year.
It was shortly after viewing the clip of the wife of Doug Mastriano – Pennsylvania’s ill-fated Republican nominee for governor – jumping in front of a press conference microphone to tell reporters that they “probably love Israel more than a lot of Jews do” that I thought to myself: Are these people intent on offending the entire electorate before losing?
This moment was emblematic of the Mastriano campaign, one that sincerely aimed to address only the Donald Trump MAGA faithful while competing in the blue-ish state of Pennsylvania. After all, Mastriano had been photographed dressing up as a Confederate soldier while serving as a state senator and had called attempts to ban conversion therapy for LGBT youth “disgusting” – moments practically designed to turn off the large numbers of independent, moderate, and former Republican voters in Pennsylvania crucial to a successful statewide bid.
Jenna Ellis, a national Trump alum advising Mastriano’s campaign, thought it wise to echo this sentiment on Twitter, calling Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro, who has deep ties to the Southeast Pennsylvania Jewish community, “at best a secular Jew.” How on earth could she know that, and why on earth would she say it?
Advice for future candidates: don’t tell minority groups – or any groups – that you are better stewards of their interests than they are.
Maybe there was some explanation behind these moments — but as they say in politics, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. What most voters saw of Mastriano was a picture of a bizarre and unlikeable political figure.
I was struck by the odd tone and presence from Mastriano when I moderated a Republican candidates’ forum in Harrisburg in April. With a number of candidates on stage, the dynamic between Mastriano and his sizable cohort of supporters felt oddly like the call-and-response of a preacher to his congregation. It was strange to witness.
This helps explain why Mastriano significantly underperformed the more moderate Mehmet Oz – the Republican U.S. Senate candidate – in Philadelphia’s vote-rich suburbs, where voters lean Democratic but have shown a willingness to split their tickets for Republicans like Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick and U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey.
Mastriano trailed Dr. Oz by more than 250,000 votes statewide, losing to Josh Shapiro by 14% and likely bringing multiple state house and congressional races down with him. Just north of Pennsylvania, the opposite occurred, with New York Republican Lee Zeldin putting up an impressive showing in his losing bid for governor, helping the GOP flip at least four congressional seats.
The biggest victims of Mastriano’s candidacy were Republicans running down-ballot for Congress and the state house, which is likely to revert to Democratic control for the first time in years. Incumbent Republican legislators like Todd Stephens in Montgomery County and Todd Polinchock in Bucks County were already facing a more Democratic map with redistricting; though they both outran Mastriano and Oz by significant margins, they appear to have been swallowed up in a mini Blue Wave.
Meanwhile, congressional hopeful Lisa Scheller nearly closed the gap to defeat Democrat Susan Wild in a rematch in Pennsylvania’s swingy Lehigh Valley-based Seventh Congressional District. Scheller outran Mastriano by tens of thousands of votes combined in the key counties of Northampton, Lehigh, and Carbon, but ultimately lost her race by 4,700 votes. Even a middling Republican candidate in the governor’s race would have likely helped her win it, delivering Pennsylvania Republicans a needed victory in an otherwise abysmal cycle. Only so many voters are willing to split their tickets.
Mastriano shared all of Trump’s bad qualities and none of his good ones. He showed bombast and an ability to offend, often needlessly, but notoriously avoided the media, including what should have been friendly outlets like conservative talk radio. He called one Southeast Pennsylvania conservative outlet “left-wing media” and accused it of resorting to “East German” tactics before ending an interview over a question about QAnon, which should have been a lay-up for a competent Republican candidate. He appealed to many of Trump’s diehards, but unlike the former president he made no effort to find new voters in Pennsylvania’s diverse, working-class communities that have moved rightward in recent election cycles. He embraced a Christian conservative playbook on a number of social issues, not just ignoring but angering the gay community. This contrasts with Trump, who waived a Pride flag in 2016.
Mastriano campaigned as an evangelist, not a candidate. His closing message was heartfelt and biblical – an image of a rainbow emerging over a Pennsylvania Trump rally – but not effective for the goal of winning a statewide election here. His message did not translate beyond his core supporters.
Mastriano’s moment is up, but Pennsylvania Republicans will need to figure out how to field candidates with wider appeal if they wish to avoid another spectacular loss in 2024.
