Senate Republicans are suddenly worried about your electric bill — after months of backing a war that sent energy prices through the roof and passing tax cuts that never touched your grocery costs.
With Trump's approval ratings in freefall less than six weeks before Election Day, GOP leaders are dragging senators back to Washington to vote on the Ratepayer Protection Act, a bill aimed at shielding consumers from electricity rate hikes driven by data centers. Reuters reports the vote was requested by Senator Jon Husted, who is trailing Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio — a state Trump carried by 11 points in 2024.
This is what election-year panic looks like. The same Republican conference that has voted 14 times against ending Trump's war on Iran now wants voters to believe they feel your pain at the pump and the checkout counter. The war has disrupted oil supplies and surged energy prices, and Republican candidates in tight races — Mike Rogers in Michigan, Allison Hinson in Iowa — are suddenly calling for it to end, according to Reuters.
But when they had a chance to actually stop it, almost all of them balked. On Thursday, the Senate rejected a war powers resolution to block Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran. The vote was 49-50. Only four Republicans — Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Thom Tillis — defied Trump to join Democrats. Pennsylvania's John Fetterman was the lone Democrat who voted with the GOP to keep the war powers intact, the Washington Post reported.
The House passed the same resolution in July, 214-208. It died in the Senate because 50 Republicans chose party loyalty over the constitutional requirement that Congress authorize war.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged the problem to reporters: "It's not a great environment. There are headwinds we're facing in all the races around the country." His prescription? Reuters reports Thune said demonstrating "independence from Trump on issues important to local constituents" is the best path to victory. Translation: pretend you haven't been rubber-stamping this agenda for two years.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Trump's support among Republicans dropped nine points in a single week, down to 73%. In battleground states like Georgia, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, and Texas, Civiqs data shows Trump's approval running double digits below his 2024 vote share.
Up to now, Republicans have pointed to tax cuts in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill as their affordability credential while campaigning on transgender issues and culture-war fare. As one letter writer in the Portland Press Herald noted, Trump himself has called affordability "a hoax." That's the position every Republican senator endorsed when they had a chance to constrain an open-ended conflict draining American resources.
The Ratepayer Protection Act vote next week is theater. The real question is whether 49 Republican senators who just voted to keep a war going without congressional authorization can convince voters they're the ones fighting for the household budget.
