Page F3From§Eachthe noon edition — 1 October 2026
As it ran on the front
The filing went like this. On September 8th gas hit $4.14 a gallon, a Labor Day record. A week later the Congressional Budget Office closed the books on the Iran war at $38 billion and called the number conservative. By the 22nd, rural Republicans in competitive districts were asking the White House for relief, and Senate Republicans split over whether to answer diesel prices with an export ban. That is the column as it stood. The receipts since then are forecasts, not fuel prices, and they move the same direction.
On September 22nd, Sabato's Crystal Ball moved Iowa's Senate race from "leans Republican" to toss-up. The filing named the reason: Representative Ashley Hinson had spent the Monday before trying to put distance between herself and the Iran war. The forecaster filed its revision the next day.…
…(cont) The same Tuesday, Sabato's Crystal Ball also moved Kansas toward Democrats. Cook Political Report filed its own change the next morning, September 23rd, moving Kansas from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican," a state that has sent nothing but Republicans to the Senate since 1939, eighty-seven years, the longest streak of single-party Senate control in the country. Two handicappers, one day apart, one state.
On September 26th, Kansas picked up a second filing. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted raids in the state, and Washington Examiner's reporting listed them as a new line item in the race, stacked on top of rising fuel prices already in the ledger.
By October 1st the beat reporting had a dateline: Coffeyville, Kansas, near the Oklahoma border, where rancher Chuck Madron is on record furious about diesel prices and beef imports, in a state where a Democrat has not won a Senate seat in ninety-four years. The same outlet ran seven reasons the race goes to the wire the same day.
None of that is a prediction. It is two forecasters and one Republican newspaper's own reporters, filing in the same direction in the same ten days, about a race Republicans have not had to defend since 1939, hon.
“Nobody sent Kansas a bill marked "Iran war," they just raised diesel and let the ICE raids land the same week two different outfits downgraded the race. A state that's voted Republican since before World War Two doesn't flip over a slogan; it flips because the guy at the feed store did the math on diesel and beef himself. That's the whole con: call the price conservative, then act surprised when the customer checks the receipt.”
“Toss-up doesn't mean lost, it means close, and Republicans have won this seat close for — well, for as long as Kansas has had a Senate seat, so that number doesn't really prove anything. Did I say "as long as"? Forget I said that — point is, forecasters have moved ratings before and been wrong. The ICE raids, that's just enforcement doing its job; it's not our fault the calendar put it a month out.”
Earlier in this story
The receipts
Democrats are running an average of 11.5 points ahead of their 2024 baseline across 2026 special elections MultiState Elections, 2026 special-election tracking
Seven reasons why the Kansas Senate race will go down to the wireWelcome to Washington Secrets, which this week comes to you from Kansas. If a friend sent you this and you’d like to sign up, CLICK HERE. SALINA, Kansas — Kansas holds the record for the longest continuous streak of single-party control of both Senate seats in a state.
Washington Secrets is on a road trip through Kansas, investigating the issues that will decide whether Democrats can claim their first Senate seat there in almost a century. We start close to the border with Oklahoma, in the far southeast, with ranchers who are increasingly frustrated with President Donald Trump. COFFEYVILLE, KANSAS –…
· Cook Political Report shifts Kansas, South Carolina Senate races toward Democrats from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
· Sabato's Crystal Ball moves 3 Senate, 4 gubernatorial races in Democrats' favor from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· Iowa Senate race shifts to toss-up as Iran war plagues Republican Hinson from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· Kansas ICE raids add to GOP headaches in increasingly competitive Senate race from the morgue, 26 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.