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This Was a 'Throw the Bums Out' Election, and Both Losers and Winners Should Take Heed
Lessons must be learned from this election—and it appears the establishment consultants on both sides don’t appear to understand.
Nov 09, 2026
There were surprises and non-surprises in this year’s midterm elections.
Democrats were expected to win and they did. All of the indicators normally considered in a midterm election pointed in that direction. And when reviewing state-by-state polling in key contests featuring vulnerable Republican senators, Democrats had the edge in everyone—Maine, Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas. What wasn’t expected was that Democrats would also beat Republicans in Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina.
In the weeks before the elections, warnings were raised that the polls were inflating the Democrats’ chances in several states. This cautionary note proved to be unfounded. The polling averages suggested that overall Democrats would likely beat Republicans by 11 points. They ended up besting Republicans by 13 points.
Democrats mustn’t assume that this year’s victories will automatically repeat in 2028. The consultants who are telling Democrats that the GOP is dead and it’s time to move to the center, are wrong on both counts.
Maybe the biggest miscalculation of this election was made by President Donald Trump who assumed that he would be an asset to vulnerable Republicans by holding rallies in their states. As it turned out, his events proved to be more about him and his need to be center stage. In some, he spoke for almost two hours, mostly about himself—his grievances; wild claims about how great the country is doing (thereby dismissing the economic concerns of many voters); and engaging in vulgar, bigoted, and demeaning attacks on immigrant groups and Democratic opponents in other states—often overshadowing and ignoring the candidates he was supposed to be helping.
His constant refrain in these speeches was, “Vote as if I were on the ballot.” In the end, as one reporter observed, voters did just that. And since Mr. Trump has a 32% favorable rating, the outcome wasn’t a good one for Republicans.
There was a real concern that the White House might attempt to stymie the vote in some districts. Others worried there might be a “October Surprise”—renewed bombing of Iran, sending armed immigration enforcement officials to select polling places to intimidate voters, or ordering the FBI to seize ballot boxes. None of this happened, and so Election Day and its immediate aftermath proved uneventful.
Because Democratic candidates were raising more money than Republicans, the GOP turned to what are called super PACs, corporate PACs, and other non-reportable independent expenditure entities to give them an advantage. As a result, this was the most expensive election in history. While the numbers are still being tallied, it appears that more than $14 billion was spent by both parties.
The New York Times published an early list of 20 billionaire donors to campaigns who collectively spent more than $2 billion in this election. While there were some Democrats in the group, most were Republicans. Elon Musk, for example, invested over $450 million to support Republicans (half in Texas) while entities related to the Soros family put $100 million into Democratic campaigns. If anything, this election has brought to the center of our political debate the role of unregulated and unreported money in politics.
As expected, the issues that dominated this election were the cost of living, immigration, corruption, and foreign wars. Most of these broke in favor of Democrats, which left Republicans trying to blame high prices on the Biden administration or to shift the discussion to the threat posed by immigrants. Such tactics may have worked in the 2024 election, but the impact of the president’s tariffs on many consumer goods and the ever-increasing costs of gasoline, diesel fuel, and home heating took their toll on the GOP
The issues of US military aid to Israel and the role played by the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC) in intimidating and silencing politicians played a less significant role in the November election than it had in the Democratic primaries where support for Israel proved to be the undoing of several incumbents. In the Senate races, a number of Democrats who won this year were clear in their opposition to aid to Israel and their refusal to accept the support of AIPAC, but because they weren’t challenged by their Republican opponents, the issue didn’t become a central theme in the November election.
The major exception was the Senate contest in Michigan between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. But it wasn’t Rogers who made El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel the issue. Instead, following the lead of President Trump, Rogers focused on charges that El-Sayed is a socialist or Islamic extremist who couldn’t be trusted to be loyal to America. The attacks against El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel were left to the woman he’d defeated in the Democratic primary, who continued to demand that he adopt her positions on Israel. When El-Sayed refused to do so, she endorsed Mike Rogers, an act of political suicide which ended up benefiting El-Sayed’s campaign.
Policy matters aside, one “meta-issue” helped shape this year’s contests. Voters on both sides of the partisan debate are fed up with politicians—especially the blow-dried, consultant-shaped characters who’ve long dominated the stage. Voters want authenticity: candidates who speak hard truths, whom they feel can be trusted to address their needs. One might argue that this was Donald Trump’s appeal in 2016 and Joe Biden’s in 2020. And it’s the edge that Mr. Trump has lost—with his expensive vanity remodeling projects, shady business dealings, and demonstrated insensitivity to the economic hardships of many voters. If anything, this year was a classic “throw the bums out” election—leading to many establishment Democratic politicians being beaten in the primaries and the GOP’s establishment crowd being shown the door in the general
Lessons must be learned from this election—and it appears the establishment consultants on both sides don’t appear to understand. Democrats mustn’t assume that this year’s victories will automatically repeat in 2028. The consultants who are telling Democrats that the GOP is dead and it’s time to move to the center, are wrong on both counts. Voters chose Democrats willing to fight for a change in economic priorities—where healthcare is seen as a right and affordable for all; where resources are allocated away from war and weapons toward meeting domestic priorities; and where money from corporations and billionaires don’t dominate our politics. If Democrats, now in charge, don’t address these issues that brought them victory, they may pay a price in 2028.
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Vanquishing Trump's GOP Army Is Today's Task—But We Can't Stop There
So even if everything goes well today—and there's no guarantee yet that it will—we must not fool ourselves into believing that our job is done.
Nov 03, 2026
It is impossible to know how America will vote today. The polls are encouraging, but, as we have painfully learned, they cannot be relied upon.
All we really can rely on is the good sense of the American people.
True, some Americans continue to worship at the altar of the worst president in American history. Others continue to be so angry and disaffected that they lash out against scapegoats such as Muslims, transgender people, Black people, and immigrants.
Others with better sense understand that Trump and his Republican sycophants in Congress have caused prices to rise faster than their wages, largely because of Trump’s war with Iran and his tariffs. As a result, they’re justifiably furious at the economic crisis Trump and Republicans have foisted upon them and their families.
Those with the best sense see that Trump and the GOP have also betrayed the central values of America — democracy, equal justice under the law, and basic fairness. And they’re committed to changing course.
I believe that a majority of Americans fall into the latter two categories. They will put an end to Republican control of the House and possibly the Senate.
But even if the great sleeping giant of America fully awakens today, our job just begins.
A dangerous man continues to occupy the White House, and his already tenuous grip on rational thought is rapidly slipping away. His Cabinet appointees are among the most ignorant and treacherous ever to hold these jobs. A majority of the Supreme Court holds bizarre positions, such as the “unitary executive” and “originalist” theories found nowhere in law or the Constitution.
So even if everything goes well today, we must not fool ourselves into believing that our job is done. Whatever happens, we’re going to have to continue to organize, mobilize, and energize everyone around us to put pressure on Congress — even a Congress controlled by the Democrats — to protect and strengthen our democracy.
For now, let us hope and pray that common sense prevails today.
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Vance's Exchange With Voter on Affordability Exemplifies Why He Should Be 'Eminently Beatable' in 2028
"This is a real issue and a great question," said one observer. "JD turns it into a joke. Great closing message, dude."
Oct 30, 2026
The question posed by Kate White, vice president of the Turning Point USA chapter at Texas Christian University, at Vice President JD Vance's town hall on Thursday night was one that most politicians in his position would knock "out of the park," said one policy expert.
Armed with note cards and addressing the issue at the top of voters' and campaigns' priority lists—affordability—as well as the White House's push for Americans to have more children, White asked the vice president to explain how he and others on the right "expect us to start families young."
"A constant message that my generation hears from the right is to get married young, have kids young, have as many kids as possible, and I think what the right doesn't acknowledge most of the time is how disincentivized we are currently because of the cost of owning a home, and the general expenses of raising a family," said the student.
"The average price of a home in America now costs more than $415,000, which just feels out of reach for us,” she added.
Unfortunately for White and anyone watching the Fox News town hall who might be interested to know about ideas Vance had to bring down the cost of housing or ensure young Americans can more easily afford to start families by addressing high childcare and healthcare prices, the vice president appeared to stall for time with a joke about one of President Donald Trump's recent favorite topics: the physique of US Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio).
Vance pointed out that while he had been asked four or five questions up to that point in the event, he had "only been asked one question about John Husted's ass, and it was by Jesse Watters," the Fox anchor who was hosting the town hall.
Q: How does the right and yourself expect us to start families young when the average price of a home in America costs more than $415,000 which feels out of reach for us.Vance: The reason why housing exploded is in part because we allowed 20 million illegal aliens into our country to buy homes that ought by right go to American citizens.
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026
Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, observed that "the president’s seeming fascination with the body of the Ohio Senate candidate is starting to cause weird message discipline problems" in the remaining days before the pivotal midterm elections.
Trump has taken to commenting frequently on the bodies of other Republican male lawmakers, including Husted, sharing, apropos of nothing, at a recent rally: “I examined his ass, and then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline. Studied him."
He has made similar comments about US Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), Georgia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, while insulting the appearance of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the Senate.
Trump's fixation contributed to Vance's failure to clearly answer what one observer called "a great question" about "a real issue" that's facing many young people.
Vance ultimately replied that White was "right" and that "most Republicans don't" pay enough attention to Americans' struggles to afford essentials and the cost of raising a family, before asserting that he is "an exception."
"Our entire movement and certainly, I think, the president of the United States, is very focused on 'how do we make it possible for young people to afford the basic components of an American dream?'" continued Vance. "That means good healthcare, that means if you work hard and play by the rules, you get a good job, you're able to buy and a house and all those things."
The vice president didn't elaborate on how the Trump administration has made those "components of an American dream" possible for young people like White. A report by the Commonwealth Fund this month found that the Republican Party's cuts to Medicaid and its refusal to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies led to the uninsured rate among working-age adults rising from 8.9% in 2024 to 11.2% this year.
The loss of the subsidies led premiums to rise by an average of 26% for insurance plans purchased through the ACA.
The president also refused to sign a bipartisan bill aimed at lowering the cost of housing this year, while his tariff policy and his illegal war on Iran have been blamed for sending the prices of gas, groceries, and other goods soaring. Mass deportation operations like the ones Trump has overseen have also been linked to reduced construction labor, resulting in fewer completed homes and higher home prices.
Instead of outlining what he believes the Republican Party has done to put home ownership and parenthood within reach for more Americans, Vance pivoted to a well-worn, debunked theory that's been pushed by Trump: "The reason why housing exploded in America is in part because we allowed 20 million illegal aliens into our country to buy homes that ought by right go to American citizens."
At MS NOW, Steve Benen wrote that "Vance’s statistic is wildly inflated and totally at odds with actual data—the idea that 20 million undocumented immigrants have the resources to buy up American real estate is nonsensical."
Benen noted that another factor Vance pointed to, a ban on Wall Street investors buying up homes, "actually made some sense, though it touched on a problem Vance neglected to mention"—that the ban was part of the bipartisan housing bill that Trump refused to support.
Vance concluded by suggesting that young people should simply start families even if they are struggling to afford groceries, housing, childcare, student loan payments, and other necessities.
"Go ahead and do it, because you’re never going to regret getting married and having kids," he said.
Aside from the lapses in logic within the vice president's answer to the question, journalist Ahmed Baba said his approach to the exchange displayed "the political instincts of a gnat. The charisma of a concrete slab. The saucelessness of an unseasoned chicken. Unprecedented levels of lame."
Should Vance, widely seen as the successor to Trump's MAGA movement, become the Republican presidential nominee in 2028, said journalist Mehdi Hasan, "he will be eminently beatable. He is an awful politician."
Campaign strategist Charles Monaco said the exchange illustrated how the people in Trump's orbit "have so long ago given up on their most basic job of answering to voters."
"All they do," he said, "is answer to the increasingly deranged attention vortex of Trump."
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4 Strikes Against a Deeply Unpopular, Warmongering Trump Creates Midterm Without Precedent
Let no one mistake the moment. Historians will look back at the conditions under which Americans voted in 2026, and they will find no midterm quite like it.
Oct 30, 2026
I have studied American elections for more than four decades, and I am wary of the word "unprecedented." Pundits use it for every news cycle. But as the country heads toward the November 3 midterms, I cannot find another word that fits. Never in the era of modern polling has a president taken his party into a midterm with all four of these burdens at once: a deeply unpopular presidency, an economy most Americans say is failing them, an unpopular war, and pervasive public alarm about corruption.
Any one of these can cost a party dearly. Two or three together have produced some of the worst midterm defeats in our history. All four, simultaneously, is new territory.
Consider the numbers. Donald Trump's job approval now averages in the mid-to-high 30s, with several major polls finding it at 30 or 31 percent. That is roughly where he stood when he left office in January 2021, after January 6. On the economy, the AP-NORC poll finds about three in four Americans disapproving of his performance, and nearly four in five disapproving of his handling of the cost of living. Even among Republicans, fewer than half approve of how he has handled prices.
The war with Iran began with less public support than any major American war in polling history, and it has lost ground since. Surveys now show it as unpopular as Iraq in 2006 and Vietnam in the early 1970s. One analysis of more than 150 surveys across seven major conflicts concluded that it is the most unpopular major war the United States has fought.
And corruption, long a background complaint, has moved to the foreground. In a recent Fox News poll, 88 percent of voters said they were concerned about corruption in government, ranking it above inflation and gas prices. Nearly two in three Americans tell pollsters the president uses his office to enrich himself, with the fastest increase among Republican-leaning voters over the past year.
Now look at history. In 1946, Harry Truman's approval sank to about one-third amid postwar inflation and strikes. Democrats lost 54 House seats, 11 Senate seats, and control over both chambers. But there was no unpopular war and no corruption scandal at the center of the campaign. In 1966, Lyndon Johnson’s Democrats lost House 47 seats, and 3 Senate seats, yet Vietnam had not yet turned a majority of Americans against it. In 1974, after Watergate and amid double-digit inflation, Republicans lost 48 House and 4 Senate seats. But American combat in Vietnam was largely over, and Gerald Ford had been president for only three months.
The closest parallel is 2006. George W. Bush stood in the high 30s, Iraq was going badly, and Republicans were mired in the Abramoff and Foley scandals. Republicans lost 30 House seats, 6 Senate seats, and like the Democrats in 1946, control over both chambers. Yet even then, the economy was middling rather than broadly seen as broken. Bush had three strikes, not four.
Harry Truman's Republican opponents did eventually assemble a four-part indictment of Korea, communism, corruption and a sputtering presidency. But that was the presidential election of 1952, not a midterm.
My Keys to the White House predict presidential elections, not midterms. But they rest on the simple principle that American elections are referendums on the governance of the party in power. Several of the keys measure exactly the forces at work today: the short-term economy, scandal, and foreign or military failure. When those turn against the party holding the White House, voters notice. This year, they have turned all at once.
Still, a historic environment does not guarantee a historic seat count. The House map is far less elastic than it was in 1946 or 1974. Two rounds of partisan line-drawing have shrunk the number of competitive districts. The Cook Political Report estimates Democrats must win 57 of 77 competitive seats to take the majority. Partisan polarization is also stronger than it was in Truman's day; a president at 35 percent keeps most of his own voters. And the Senate map leans Republican, with Democrats needing to win in Republican states to regain Senate control. When the president’s party is on defense in Texas, Ohio, and even Kansas, which hasn’t elected a Democratic Senator since 1932, the national environment is doing the work.
So four strikes may not pull the Republican Party completely under. A large popular-vote rebuke may yield a more modest shift in seats than the national mood would suggest.
But let no one mistake the moment. Historians will look back at the conditions under which Americans voted in 2026, and they will find no midterm quite like it. Whatever the final tally, the verdict on this presidency is already written in the polls. On November 3, voters will decide how loudly to deliver it.
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'He Cannot Undo the Cruelty': Ramaswamy Stops Airing Vile Attack Ad After Over a Week of Outrage
"Vivek Ramaswamy should never have run his despicable ad in the first place, and it’s totally unsurprising that he took it off the air in the most cowardly way possible."
Oct 30, 2026
Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Thursday that his repulsive attack ad featuring his Democratic opponent's estranged biological mother will no longer air on television after more than a week of nationwide outrage.
Ramaswamy did not apologize for running the ad, in which Donna Arthur calls her daughter, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, a liar. The ad doesn't mention that Arthur lost custody of Acton and her brother after their stepfather—Arthur's husband—was indicted for raping Acton when she was 12.
Ramaswamy’s campaign initially planned to spend $4 million airing the ad in Ohio, but tracking data shows it spent just a quarter of that total.
"It ran to completion, and we've put up four other ads," Ramaswamy, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, said during a campaign stop in Vandalia on Thursday.
Addie Bullock, a spokesperson for Acton's campaign, said in a statement on Thursday that "Vivek Ramaswamy should never have run his despicable ad in the first place, and it’s totally unsurprising that he took it off the air in the most cowardly way possible, without even the hint of an apology to Dr. Acton, her family, or to the people of Ohio."
Others said that discontinuing the ad doesn't reverse the damage inflicted by Ramaswamy, who—according to polling commissioned by a Republican group—has fallen further behind Acton in the days leading up to next week's midterms.
"Vivek Ramaswamy may have stopped airing his vicious attack on Amy Acton, but he cannot undo the cruelty of creating it," said civil rights attorney Areva Martin.
The ad began circulating on social media on October 19, without paid-for disclosures required by federal law. Ramaswamy confirmed two days later that his campaign was behind the ad, and announced plans to spend millions airing the spot even as it sparked bipartisan backlash—including from Ohio's outgoing Republican governor.
But US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance defended the ad, with Trump encouraging Ramaswamy to keep it on the air and dismissing Acton's account of childhood sexual assault.
“The Press is trying to convince everyone that this Ad is bad, because it’s so good!” Trump wrote in a social media post. “Who wouldn’t use such an Ad?”
The White House's public defense of the ad stands in contrast to the message Ramaswamy received privately from "multiple Republicans" before the spot aired, according to Zeteo.
“It’s siding with the rapist protector mom,” an unnamed Trump adviser told the outlet of Ramaswamy's ad. “This was never a good idea."
NEW on @zeteo_newsSources say Amy Acton's mom seemed mentally unwell when Ramaswamy's ad was filmed & she had trouble keeping a coherent narrative on the past.Some wanted to vet her more but *Ramaswamy himself* pushed ahead.@JSweetLI & Swin Suebsaeng:https://t.co/2yl7Vh0K5P
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) October 28, 2026
Ramaswamy's ad led the editorial board of Ohio's largest newspaper, The Plain Dealer, to reverse its recently announced policy against endorsing candidates in major races and publish an endorsement of Acton.
"A candidate who uses childhood sexual abuse as a weapon against the person who endured it has crossed a line that Ohioans should defend, whatever their party," the editorial board wrote. "We are better than this. We have a responsibility to show it."
"And our endorsement of Acton rests on more than Ramaswamy’s failure to meet a basic standard of decency," the editorial added. "She has earned consideration on her own record, her preparation, and her commitment to the people she seeks to serve."
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How to Landslide the Corporatist Candidates
It is only going to get much worse and war-like with Trump in the next two years unless he is impeached and removed from office.
Oct 26, 2026
Progressive candidates should be winning landslide victories over corporatist Republicans and replacing corporate Democrats on the merits of an authentic people-first agenda and legislation that makes big corporations and their government toadies our servants, not our masters. If progressive candidates fail to deliver, they, too, should be replaced.
Voters, have a civic duty beyond casting a ballot or staying home in despair to impress upon the candidates what must be done—and how to meet the long-neglected necessities of the citizenry, especially the families and children and workers, so long deprived of overdue changes and reforms. For example, a majority or supermajority view the following as immediate “kitchen-table” needs.
1. “Affordability” is about more than high prices and interest rates. It is also about too many people having too little income and government doing too little to crack down on corporate crooks who drain consumers’ hard-earned dollars and savings in both Red and Blue States.
Passage of legislation to raise the minimum wage from a frozen federal $7.25 per hour to a living wage, will give tens of millions of workers a long-overdue raise.
2. Cracking down on the fleecing, cheating, and outright theft from consumers and workers can come from “law and order” criminal law enforcement and civil actions by the wrongfully injured plaintiffs. This enforcement has the backing of over 85% of the people who despise the double standard of justice, which they see every day.
3. Reverse the huge tax cuts, escapes, and evasions by large corporations and the super-wealthy like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg (see the October 2026 Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy report: After Two Rounds of Trump Tax Cuts, Corporate America Paid Less Than Ever in 2025) to the levels of the prosperous Nineteen Sixties. End huge corporate welfare outlays for the giant corporate freeloaders paid for by taxpayers and the massive billing fraud paid by patients and shoppers.
These restorations and prosecutions, supported by huge majorities of left-right voters, will more than pay for full Medicare for all, everybody in, nobody out, a real child tax credit, child care, maternal and family sick leave, and lots of public infrastructure projects, which will create good jobs in communities everywhere.
Don’t we need more of the money already extracted from taxpayers sent back home? How about the runaway, bloated, unaudited military budget and its giant corporate monopolistic military contractors like Lockheed Martin and its F-22 budget buster, or General Dynamics, the sole endless builder of the doomsday Trident submarines? Multiple nuclear warheads from only one of these subs can destroy 200 cities in the world within an hour. How many have Trump, Biden, and Obama, commissioned?
Read President Eisenhower’s Cross of Iron speech to newspaper editors in April 1953 to see how many schools, hospitals, bridges, etc. can be built by reducing gigantic military waste and corporate/Empire extravaganzas. (See speech.)
How about this? Who’s talking about raising Social Security benefits, unchanged since 1971, by raising the individual income cap, now $184,000 for Social Security taxes? Trillionaire Musk, the bosses of the subsidized oil and gas giants, the big bankers and health insurance giants, and the executives of the giant hospital chains, who make at least two million a month, paid Social Security taxes on only the first $184,000 of their income. In 2022, two hundred Democrats supported Congressman John Larson’s bill, the Social Security 2100 Act (H.R. 9519), which would expand benefits and strengthen the program’s finances by requiring higher-income Americans to contribute more.
Unfortunately, corporatist Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked a vote on the House floor on a measure overwhelmingly supported by about 60 million retirees. The Democrats lost control of the House in the 2022 election to the Republicans in part due to Pelosi’s terrible obstruction.
Working people don’t recognize that each one of them who sends tax dollars to Washington every year sends more dollars than half the giant companies who have made enormous untaxed profits in the US and pay zero federal income taxes! The average taxes paid by corporations are just barely above 10%. Compare that to working people’s tax payments. (See, the ITEP report mentioned above.)
There are so many ways to landslide the corporatist candidates from both Parties. See my recent column: Winning Strategies for Progressive Candidates in the Final Stretch, the online report Crushing the GOP, or my later book “Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country that Works for the People,” pages 219-232.
There are simple, clearly reasoned and just changes and transformations in these works. You can add public funding of public elections, which will stop corporate lobbyists from raiding Congress and the US Treasury with their cash registers politics. Other ideas and strategies can be found in my column at Nader.org, radio/podcasts (ralphnaderradiohour.com), interviews with the media, public letters, and many tweets. Other authors have put forward similar advances.
Although there has been very little disagreement with how justice, fairness, economic production and life-saving proposals can save and improve lives, almost none of them have been adopted by these campaigners.
WHY?
Here’s my take:
- Campaigns get into routines and ruts that impede new thinking, readjustments, or re-directions by the candidates, regardless of Party.
- Campaign staffers become possessive and turf-minded and reject the truism that “none of us are as smart as all of us.”
- Candidates contract out too much of their campaigns to corporate-conflicted consultants who take over campaigns, become control freaks, and exclude outside inputs, such as from progressive civic groups and labor unions. (See my column: Midterm Elections Too Close: Dems Need to Fire Their Corporate-Conflicted Political Consultants)
- Candidates are indentured to the strings-attached commercial campaign donors and corporate PACs. This is a big inhibition, even though it may cost candidates votes as the price of these corrupting dollars register with the electorate.
- Frenzied campaigning, especially in the last few weeks before election day, freezes thinking. An accelerating schedule of repetitive meetings and events exhaust the candidate, while stale messaging bores the media—just when that messaging most needs reworking.
- Gross inaccessibility. Try getting through to any campaigns. Many have no telephone numbers or street-level campaign headquarters. Just email addresses, P.O. boxes, or websites for receiving donations. Even worse—try getting through to either Parties’ campaign committees, such as the Democratic or Republican National Committee, to discuss policies, programs, strategies, and ways to clean up elections and empower the people.
Alas, the days are dwindling to November 3, 2026, as are many opportunities to elect enough determined lawmakers who will stop the lawless, lying, corrupt, cruel, violent, war-making, people-exploiting, corporatist Tyrant Trump and his worsening dictatorship over our Constitution and Republic for which it stands.
It is only going to get much worse and war-like with Trump in the next two years unless he is impeached and removed from office (“You’re Fired!”) or induced to resign and install a Trump rubber stamp J.D. Vance presidency, letting Trump play golf at his Mar-a-Lago retirement compound. See my October 2, 2026 column titled: What Could Persuade Trump to Resign Should Democrats Win Congress?).
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Largest US Corporations Paid Lowest-Ever Tax Rate in 2025 Thanks to Trump and GOP: Study
"At a time when lawmakers claim the country cannot afford investments in families and communities, some of the most profitable corporations in American history are paying little or nothing in federal income taxes."
Oct 22, 2026
Some of the biggest US corporations paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 10.4% last year as Republican legislation passed by President Donald Trump disproportionately benefited businesses and the superrich while eviscerating key social programs, a study published Thursday revealed.
The 706 corporations examined by the Washington, DC-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reported a combined $1.88 trillion in US profits in 2025, yet paid less than half the statutory federal corporate income tax rate of 21%. Of those companies, the study found that 114 paid no federal income taxes at all.
Those 706 companies collectively paid current federal corporate income taxes equal to just 10.4% of that $1.88 trillion, "the lowest effective rate that ITEP has uncovered in over 40 years of analyzing corporate income taxes," according to the analysis.
The study attributes this to two major tax laws enacted under Trump: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—derided at the time as the "GOP Tax Scam"—slashed the statutory corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, while the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by the president last year expanded and made permanent the 2017 cuts.
NEW: U.S. corporations are paying the lowest tax rate seen in decades.706 major corporations collectively paid a federal income tax rate of just 10.4%, less than half the statutory rate.114 corporations paid zero.itep.org/corporate-ta...
[image or embed]
— ITEP (@itep.org) October 22, 2026 at 8:30 AM
"These findings show just how dramatically the corporate tax system has been tilted in favor of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful companies,” ITEP senior fellow Matt Gardner, who co-authored the report, said in a statement.
“At a time when lawmakers claim the country cannot afford investments in families and communities, some of the most profitable corporations in American history are paying little or nothing in federal income taxes," he added. "This is not an accident. It is the predictable outcome of deliberate policy choices that have steadily eroded the corporate tax base."
Among the report's key findings:
- The 114 companies that paid no current federal income tax last year include Tesla, Walt Disney, CVS, Citigroup, United Airlines, and DoorDash;
- 258 corporations paid effective tax rates below 7%, or less than one-third of the statutory rate;
- Those 258 companies reported $683 billion in US profits but paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 1.7%;
- The 706 corporations studied received $198 billion in federal tax subsidies by paying less than the statutory 21% rate;
- They also benefited from an additional $263 billion in tax savings attributable to the 2017 reduction of the statutory rate from 35% to 21%; and
- Just 25 corporations accounted for more than half of the 2025 tax subsidies, with Alphabet ($18.9 billion), Microsoft ($18.7 billion), Amazon ($17.4 billion), and Meta ($13.9 billion) among the largest beneficiaries.
While proponents of subsidies claim they are necessary to encourage investment, the new study raises questions about why some of the nation's most profitable corporations should receive billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies while vital social programs upon which tens of millions of Americans rely, like Medicaid and food stamps, suffer historic cuts under Republican legislation.
“Congress has repeatedly chosen to expand tax breaks for corporations that are already extraordinarily profitable,” said Steve Wamhoff, ITEP's federal policy director and co-author of the report. “Rather than continuing to subsidize corporate investments and reward aggressive tax avoidance, lawmakers should close these loopholes and ensure that large corporations pay a meaningful share of their profits in taxes.”
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From Bad to Catastrophic: Report Details How Trump's GOP 'Taking This Country Backward' on Healthcare
A new report warns that President Donald Trump and the GOP's assault on key healthcare programs is set to push up the number of uninsured people to 37 million—a level not seen in more than a decade.
Oct 22, 2026
A comprehensive report on the state of the for-profit US healthcare system published Thursday shows that President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's assault on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act is on track to reverse more than a decade of progress on expanding insurance coverage, fueling a worsening medical debt crisis and forcing millions to delay or forgo treatment.
The Commonwealth Fund's annual status report on the American health insurance system notes that the uninsured rate for working-age US adults rose from 8.9% in 2024 to 11.2% this year, as the Trump-GOP cuts to Medicaid and their refusal to extend enhanced ACA subsidies pushed millions off their coverage. The report emphasizes that the worst is yet to come, given that many of the Medicaid cuts included in the 2025 Trump-GOP budget law—including punitive new work reporting requirements—have not taken effect nationwide.
"The combined effects of these changes are expected to drive the number of uninsured people to 37 million by 2036—about the same as in 2014, when most of the ACA’s changes took effect," the report observes. "At the same time, rapid growth in health costs is making both insurance and care even less affordable—and contributing to medical debt—for Americans across the country."
Looking beyond just the uninsured rate, the Commonwealth Fund report shows that nearly half of working-age adults were "inadequately insured" this year due to a coverage gap or unaffordable plans. Around 30% of US adults reported having medical debt, according to the new report.
"Unlike peer countries, the US does not guarantee adequate health insurance for all its residents," the report states. "Our survey findings show just how detrimental a lack of continuous coverage and high out-of-pocket costs are to people’s ability to afford care and maintain their health—without going into debt."
The report comes as Americans casting their ballots in the November 3 midterm elections identify healthcare as a key issue amid a broader affordability crisis that Trump has repeatedly dismissed as a "hoax" perpetrated by his political opponents.
According to the Commonwealth Fund's survey, 73% of US adults "believe the federal government has a responsibility to ensure all Americans have coverage, including 45% of Republicans, 93% of Democrats, and 76% of independents." That finding is consistent with an earlier poll from the health policy group KFF showing that two-thirds of the American public has a favorable view of Medicare for All.
Trump has publicly and misleadingly attacked Medicare for All while insisting—without providing any specifics—that he intends to pass "a truly great healthcare plan" if the GOP retains control of Congress next month.
Trump has also touted small, one-time healthcare rebate checks that his administration has sent out to some Americans ahead of the midterms. The checks pale in comparison to the healthcare cost increases facing tens of millions of Americans.
Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in response to the Commonwealth Fund report that "Trump and Republicans are taking this country backward."
"Families are facing skyrocketing premiums, mounting medical bills, and going without coverage altogether," said Dach. "They’re being forced to put off seeing a doctor, skip prescriptions, or gamble with their health because they can’t afford care. And it’s only going to get worse as millions more Americans are expected to lose their health insurance as the full force of Republican cuts takes hold."
"This is a damning report on Donald Trump and Republicans’ healthcare agenda, which is making it harder to afford and access care for working families across the country," Dach added. "The only way to fix this is through the choices that Americans make in November.”
The Commonwealth Fund report came as KFF found that American workers now pay around $7,470 per year on average for employer-sponsored family health coverage—an increase of 9% compared to 2025.
“We have been hearing a lot about Affordable Care Act and Medicaid cuts," said KFF president and CEO Drew Altman. "Now add a 9% increase in what workers with employer coverage paid toward family premiums in 2026 to the reasons voters are so concerned about their healthcare costs."
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'Bald-Faced Lies': GOP Called Out for Running on Saving the Rural Health System They're Destroying
"Republicans across the country are desperately trying to pull the wool over voters’ eyes."
Oct 21, 2026
With the US midterm elections less than two weeks away, Republicans across the country are posturing as defenders of the country's ailing rural healthcare system even as hospitals and providers nationwide buckle under the financial strain imposed by President Donald Trump and the GOP's unprecedented cuts to Medicaid.
The advocacy group Protect Our Care said Wednesday that Republicans in key congressional races "are touting bald-faced lies" by highlighting their support for a $50 billion rural health fund that pales in comparison to the roughly $900 billion in Medicaid cuts that Trump signed into law last summer. The health policy organization KFF estimates that the Republican law will cut $137 billion in Medicaid spending for rural areas over the next decade.
Protect Our Care calls out multiple Republicans by name for misleadingly promoting their support for rural health funds, including Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas, Jon Husted of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, and Ted Cruz of Texas, as well as Reps. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, Jeff Crank of Colorado, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, Jason Smith of Missouri, and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin.
"Republicans across the country are desperately trying to pull the wool over voters’ eyes, touting their so-called 'rural health investments' as if they make up for the $1 trillion they ripped away from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. It doesn’t come close," said Protect Our Care. "Rural Americans are rapidly losing the care they need, and over 1,250 hospitals, clinics, and essential service providers are closing, cutting services, or are at risk of doing so."
"These investments," the group said of the $50 billion rural health fund, "will do nothing to stop the gushing wound Republicans hacked in the American healthcare system."
As Common Dreams reported over the summer, Collins—who is running for a sixth term against former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson—has played up her role in securing the Rural Health Transformation Program as part of the sprawling One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Collins voted against final passage of the bill, citing its cuts to Medicaid, but she provided her party with critical support to advance the measure through the Senate.
"Senator Collins is like an arsonist who helped set the fire, and then she wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put it out," Jackson said during a debate earlier this month.
Maine has so far received $190 million from the rural health fund—a fraction of the roughly $3 billion in Medicaid cuts facing the state over the next decade.
Several of Maine’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure thanks to Trump's disastrous One Big Beautiful Bill.Our healthcare system cannot survive another Susan Collins term.https://t.co/cE1Z3ujjfp
— Troy Jackson (@TroyJackson207) August 25, 2026
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), who is running for reelection against Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), similarly homed in on his GOP opponent's support for Medicaid cuts that are wreaking havoc across the country and forcing healthcare facilities to cut back on services—or close entirely.
"Mike Collins and Donald Trump passed the biggest Medicaid cut in history," said Ossoff during an October 8 debate. "A hospital in Mike Collins' own district had to shut down its labor-and-delivery unit, citing those Medicaid cuts. How can a sitting congressman vote to shut down a labor-and-delivery unit in his own district?"
While Republicans have characterized the $50 billion in funding as a key lifeline for rural hospitals, KFF noted in a recent analysis that the money "could mitigate but will not fully offset estimated cuts to federal Medicaid spending in rural areas." The policy group observed that, "unlike most of the federal Medicaid spending cuts, the fund is also time limited." States must spend the funds they receive by the end of fiscal year 2032.
"While the fund was established in part to address concerns about the impact of the reconciliation law on rural hospitals, the funding is being used for a much broader set of purposes, and there are restrictions on how hospitals can benefit," the group said, pointing out that the money cannot be put toward "propping up struggling hospitals with temporary relief."
In a fact sheet released on Wednesday, Protect Our Care pointed to comments made earlier this year by Jed Hansen, the executive director of the Nebraska Rural Health Association, who said in March that the GOP's rural health funding wouldn't go to "rural hospitals, rural clinics, and rural providers in a meaningful way.”
“Rural Health Transformation will not save a single hospital in our state,” said Hansen. “I don’t think it will save a hospital nationally.”
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Ramaswamy Takes Full Credit for Most 'Disgusting, Pathetic Ad Ever Created in the History of Political Ads'
The Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate's campaign is spending $4 million to promote the ad featuring his Democratic opponent's estranged mother, less than two weeks before Election Day.
Oct 21, 2026
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican Party's gubernatorial nominee in Ohio, confirmed on Wednesday that his campaign was behind a widely condemned attack ad featuring Democratic opponent Amy Acton's estranged biological mother, sparking fresh outrage less than two weeks before Election Day in the critical battleground state.
Ramaswamy went further than simply taking credit for the ad, whose origins were unclear when it first began circulating on social media earlier this week without mandatory disclosures—an apparent violation of federal law. Axios reported early Wednesday that his campaign is "doubling down on the message" with $4 million in spending to stream the minute-long spot statewide less than two weeks before Election Day.
Acton, a physician who is ahead of Ramaswamy in recent polling, accused Ramaswamy of exploiting her "deeply sick and unwell" mother "for his own political gain." In the 60-second spot—which one observer called "the most disgusting, pathetic ad ever created in the history of political ads"—Acton's mother accuses her daughter of lying about her past—a narrative that Acton forcefully rejected in a statement posted to Facebook on Tuesday.
"Between the ages of 10 and 12, I was sexually abused by her husband, while my birth mother did nothing to protect me," said Acton. "Eventually, I confided in my father and stepmother, and we were removed from that situation. My birth mother’s husband was arrested, charged with rape, and indicted by a grand jury. At 12 years old, I testified in court. I haven't seen my birth mother since that day in 1978. She and her husband fled the state and he was declared a fugitive."
At a town hall in Westerville, Vivek Ramaswamy addressed a controversial ad featuring Amy Acton's estranged mother. https://t.co/Eup71qC4BU https://t.co/isW2M7FzvZ
— NBC4 Columbus (@nbc4i) October 21, 2026
Acton's brother, Philip Stearns, called Ramaswamy's ad "a despicable low" that "reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core—a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants."
Even as Ramaswamy received backlash from across the political spectrum, his campaign manager boasted to Axios that the ad marked "a campaign-ending moment for Amy Acton."
Logan Phillips, an election forecaster and political reporter, offered a much different assessment.
"I think Ramaswamy just lost the race," Phillips wrote. "Amy Acton's mother stood by while her husband raped her at 12. They haven't talked since she lost custody in 1978. Millions of Ohioans are going to hear this story, and they will be offended that Vivek went this low."
Meghan Meehan-Draper, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said in a statement Tuesday that "Ramaswamy should be ashamed of himself for giving airtime to yet another person who was complicit in acts of horrific sexual abuse—this time against Dr. Acton herself."
"This is part of a disturbing pattern from Ramaswamy," said Meehan-Draper, "who has mocked Dr. Acton for being an abuse survivor and just last week released an ad featuring a convicted child sex offender.”
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