A recent YouGov/Economist poll showed President Donald Trump’s approval ratings were, in all but three states, at a net negative. The numbers didn’t seem to surprise Washington Examiner editorial director Hugo Gurdon during his appearance…
Page F5From§Eachthe early bird edition — 31 August 2026
Trump voters report the most pain at the pump, as a new gas plan promises to add more
As it ran on the front
Two numbers came out of the same week and they belong on the same page. Reporting shows Trump voters are absorbing more pain at the pump than Democratic voters, a straightforward household-budget finding. The same reporting notes a new gas proposal that could make that number worse, not better. Meanwhile the tariff bill those voters are also carrying is drawing its own forecast: Republicans, not the opposition, are projected to pay the political cost of it in the midterms.
Run the household side against the political side and the columns line up in an order worth stating plainly. The people paying the higher price at the pump are, by the reporting, the same people whose party wrote the tariff and is fielding the proposal aimed at the same fuel line. The remedy on offer is not being reported as a relief measure; it is being reported as one that could make the number larger. That is not an accusation. That is the proposal's own billing.…
…(cont) There is a second entry worth reconciling: tariffs and an active conflict abroad are both cited, in the same reporting cycle, as drivers of voter discontent heading into the midterms. A tariff is a tax collected at the border and passed down the supply chain to the register; a gas proposal is a tax collected at the pump. Neither of those levies is unfamiliar to a household budget. What is unusual is watching both land hardest on the households that voted for the administration writing them.
No subsidy line offsets this entry in the reporting available. No rebate column appears beside the tariff column. The proposal on the table is billed as a fix and reported as a possible increase, and the electorate expected to pay for both is, per the same coverage, the one currently registering the most pain and the most projected political cost. That is the full reconciliation: pain up, remedy uncertain, bill coming due at the ballot box before it comes due at the register.
“They tell your gas bill 'this fixes it' while their own coverage says it might make it worse. That's not a policy, that's a pickpocket handing you the receipt for your own wallet.”
“The proposal is about long-term energy independence, price relief follows — although, well, if the reporting says it could raise the price short-term, that's a transition cost, not a — okay, that's not landing the way I wanted.”
The receipts
Ultimately, the 2026 midterms were always going to be an uphill battle for Republicans.
‘Such are the fruits of rent-seeking special interests combining with grasping politicians’
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.