On October 9, the White House reached for a trade sanctions buster with significant global, historical, and geopolitical consequences: a decision allowing Russia to export millions of tons of diesel to the US, which President Donald Trump pitched as an answer to voters’ concerns about the economy.

“Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority,” Trump posted on social media.

The ability of his decision to move diesel markets is debatable at best. Its irony is not.

The economy does not always define elections — so long as it performs well and no external shock such as a war or a pandemic drives voting.

This year, pocketbook issues dominate and across party lines, with 84% of registered voters calling the economy “very important” to their midterm vote, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey. Fairly or otherwise, voters blame the President.

Trump has tried handouts but spends more time on things that do nothing to make voters’ lives better, such as his Washington, DC, construction projects, than on making the case for Republican votes.

The Russia diesel deal proves the point.

Trade turns against Trump

Republicans have no one but themselves to blame for their electoral position.

Much of it traces back to the America First Trade Policy, combined with the decision to launch what has proved a disastrous war against Iran.

Trade, central to Trump’s political rise, has turned against him and his party in these midterms.

Tariffs, the war with Iran, uncertainty over the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and the standoff with Canada put trade front and center this year, especially in trade-exposed states where Democrats now see openings.

Trump’s affordability efforts have done nothing to change that.

Washington now presents Russia, whose energy exports the West has spent four years trying to constrain in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as part of the solution to a global energy crisis.

This same administration slapped tariffs on India and threatened China for buying Russian oil, arguing that the revenue finances Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Lawmakers from both parties oppose the agreement, which defies the ban on Russian energy imports Congress passed in 2022 and undermines the Russia sanctions bill that Trump signed into law in September 2026, marks another break with Ukraine, and upends existing US sanctions policy.

On October 11, Republican Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and John Curtis joined Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Richard Blumenthal in calling on the administration to “immediately reverse course.”

“The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians,” they wrote.

Trump appears to care about these consequences as much as he has about the Republicans keeping the Senate.

What to learn from Mike Rogers’ U-turn

Short of climbing into a time machine and changing his war strategy on Iran, Trump had other ways to ease the affordability crisis.

He could have lifted the tariffs on Canada.

Republicans in key Senate races practically beg Trump to do so.

“Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy,” Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee in Michigan, says in an advertisement released October 7. “We need to end this tariff war now.”

He never mentions President Donald Trump, which marks a reversal for Rogers, who said in September that “Trump is right to put America first” by imposing duties.

Last week, Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, herself in a tough re-election fight, underscored her opposition to the tariffs on Canada, hailing America’s longtime ally as a vital trading partner.

Will these Republicans breaking from Trump matter?

No. Here’s why.

Could Republicans have done anything?

“It’s the economy, stupid” outlived the 1992 campaign that coined it.

“While everyone remembers ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’ from the Clinton-Gore 1992 campaign, the mantra included the tenet that fundamentals matter,” recalls Thurgood Marshall Jr., who served as White House Cabinet Secretary under President Clinton, emphasizing the need for laying the foundation for a sustainable economic turn.

“President Trump berating the Fed, promising a check in an era marked by empty promises and lifting sanctions on Russia, is pound foolish and will neither save his midterms nor fix the economy,” he adds.

Admittedly, even a smarter economic strategy would probably not have saved Republicans this year. Voters are angry at everyone, as they have been for years, and they take out that anger on the party in power.

Each of the last six national elections has flipped control of the House, the Senate, the White House, or some combination thereof.

In three of the last four “six-year itch” elections — the midterms of a president’s second term — the President’s party lost the Senate: in 1986, 2006, and 2014.

The Republicans started the 2026 midterms with an uphill battle to retain the House.

Trump’s trade policies, his decision to wage war on Iran, and his clumsy attempts to address the voters’ affordability concerns, culminating in his diesel decision favoring Russia, all but ensure significant electoral losses to come.

Democrats should remember 1992

The Blue Wave may well arrive on November 3, sweeping Democrats into majorities in the House and Senate.

If that happens, Democrats could try to replicate what Republicans achieved with Bill Clinton: welfare reform and a deal that balanced the budget. That is, if Trump allows it.

What Democrats do with their power will decide whether 2028 becomes a wave election in reverse.

“On election night, Democrats will sing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ if they stay focused on making life affordable for American families and avoid the bait Republicans will toss out in these final weeks,” Mike McCurry, White House Press Secretary to President Clinton, told us.

The Democrats can win Congress without an agenda. They cannot deliver for voters without one — and one that can pass.

“I’m more than a little worried that the Democrats may indeed flip the House and Senate but will not be able to generate the changes that voters demand given the structural constraints of legislating,” says Nelson Cunningham, a veteran of the Clinton and Biden administrations.

“As the majority party, the Democrats will need to show up in January with a comprehensive economic plan for the short and long term coupled with challenging but achievable measures and benchmarks,” Marshall says.

“But will they do so?” he asks.

McCurry shares the concern. “In Congress, the Democratic majority will likely squabble over what to do with no clear agenda about how to make Americans’ lives better. Impeach Trump or not? More to and fro about Iran and affordability. This is not the way to win back the White House,” he says.

If Democrats control Congress but fail to address core economic concerns, voters will hold it against them.

Even in an era when little legislation passes under divided government, Democrats should start deciding now which concessions they want to extract from Trump when the debt limit next needs to be raised. Doing so would give them an agenda to take into the new Congress and the 2028 elections.

The Democrats should investigate by using Congress’ oversight authority where there has been a serious impact on the American people, such as the war with Iran. And the Democrats should focus investigative hearings on the right issues such as showing how the corruption of this administration, abetted by certain corporates, harms people. The hearings can expose that.

Instead, the party now remains divided over whether to impeach Trump a third time, with one senior House Democrat calling it “a major time suck” that “will do nothing to forward our agenda.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says “we haven’t ruled anything out,” and House Democrats already plan sweeping investigations of Trump, his family, and his administration across several committees.

If a new majority reaches for impeachment before it delivers on prices, voters will likely punish Democrats, and 2028 will become another change election.