You’re reading The Weekly, a Saturday morning recap of the best Dispatch content of the week, with some additional commentary from Managing Editor Rachael Larimore.
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You → read → Larimore
After a hot and rainy summer in the Ohio bureau, I was finally able to open some windows this week and break out my sweatshirts.
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I → open → sweatshirts
But the pleasant weather isn’t the only sign of fall: Football season is in full swing, Starbucks is assaulting us with its pumpkin spice lineup, and campaign ads are hitting back-to-back-to-back whenever the television is on.
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television → assault → back
As annoying and repetitive as those ads can be, I have noticed one interesting trend: Very few that I’ve seen from Republicans mention President Donald Trump.
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I → notice → Trump
And it makes sense: Gas and diesel prices remain high because of the Iran war, inflation is stubborn, and the president has been arguing against a slowdown in AI research at a time when opposition to data centers and concerns about the technology’s safety are both rising.
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opposition → make → safety
None of that is redounding to the benefit of the GOP.
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that → redound → GOP
Cook Political Report shifted 15 races toward Democrats this week, RealClearPolitics has the Democrats with an 8.7 point lead on the generic congressional ballot, and DecisionDeskHQ gives the Democrats even odds to take both the House and the Senate.
Michael Warren reported Wednesday in Next Right that some Republican candidates are distancing themselves from Trump and his 39 percent approval rating.
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candidates → shift → Trump
Here are just a few of the examples he cited:
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he → cite → examples
Last Friday, Iowa’s Republican Senate nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson, stayed far away from Council Bluffs when Vice President J.D. Vance rolled in for a midterm rally.
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Vance → stay → rally
(“I know she couldn’t be here today, but are we going to elect Ashley Hinson the next United States senator from the great state of Iowa?” Vance asked the crowd.
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Vance → know → crowd
Then, on Monday, Hinson went for broke, issuing a statement calling for the “successful and immediate end” to the Iran war.
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Hinson → go → war
“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” she said.
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she → squeeze → Iran
Over in Michigan, former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP Senate nominee, had the same message in a new ad.
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Rogers → have → ad
“Michigan families are struggling with the price of everyday life.
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families → struggle → life
Groceries cost too much.
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Groceries → cost → much
We have to bring prices down,” says Rogers as he stands in a grocery store produce section.
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he → have → section
“The war with Iran needs to end and end quickly.”
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war → need → Iran
Wedged in between Michigan and Iowa is Wisconsin, where Rep. Tom Tiffany, the GOP’s nominee for governor, told reporters on Tuesday, “I just believe we should be exiting Iran, that it’s time to move on.”
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it → wedge → Iran
And Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio, in his own tough race, echoed the call to end the Iran war.
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Husted → echo → war
If the Democrats win the House as projected, it would render pointless Trump’s effort to have red states redraw their congressional maps to help the Republicans keep their majorities in both the House and the Senate.
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Republicans → win → House
In Thursday’s Morning Dispatch, we reviewed which states had been able to enact new maps but focused on Missouri to show how the process has been not only controversial but confusing and inconvenient for voters.
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process → review → voters
Missouri’s Legislature drew a new map in August 2025 and Gov. Mike Kehoe signed it into law the next month.
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Kehoe → draw → law
Then the legal challenges began—and they are still going, even though the election is just weeks away.
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election → begin → ?
In fact, Missouri voters may find themselves voting in November based on a map drawn in 2022 rather than the 2025 map that was used in the primaries.
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that → find → primaries
As David Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, told TMD, “This is the most chaotic situation we’ve ever seen with a map with less than two months to go before an election.”
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we → tell → election
Like Ronald Reagan in 1980, Trump’s victory in 2024 rested on a “three-legged stool” of policy.
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victory → rest → policy
Reagan offered fiscal conservatism, social conservatism, and Cold War hawkery; Trump offered a lower cost of living, an end to “forever wars,” and hostility to immigration of all stripes.
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Trump → offer → stripes
The coalition his platform produced was diverse and unusual, uniting ardent right-wing nativists with middle-class Hispanics disgruntled by Biden-era inflation.
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platform → produce → inflation
Toss in populist independents who resent business-as-usual Washington interventionism and you had a winning margin (barely) in swing states.
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you → toss → states
That coalition has now been obliterated, shattered by Trump betraying his electoral mandate so completely that I’m stumped to think of a historical precedent.
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I → obliterate → precedent
The first two legs of the stool have collapsed and the third, immigration, has been handled so poorly that it’s become a net liability for the White House.
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it → collapse → House
Read the polls and you can see the constituent parts of his 2024 base melting away in real time in anger at the foolish war he started and the oil crisis it’s caused.
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it → read → war
Trump did have some other things on his mind this week, including his address to the U.N. General Assembly and a state visit from Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
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Trump → have → Jinping
But Kevin D. Williamson noticed that his U.N. speech seemed to be more about the upcoming elections and not international diplomacy:
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speech → notice → elections
Trump’s speech was intended for domestic rather than international consumption, and it contained no good news for Republicans—rather the opposite, in fact: Trump reiterated his insistence that he expects an Iranian peace deal and a rapid decline in gasoline and diesel prices after the midterms, which is Trump’s beef-witted way of saying that he expects no such developments before the midterms.
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he → intend → midterms
Not unrelatedly, he made a point of reminding the room that he is not going to be on the ballot.
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he → make → ballot
Allow me to translate that into English from the original Low Chimpanzee: You Republicans are hosed, nothing is going to be done about the one big issue that most irritates the greater part of your voters, and my main concern here is that this could make me look bad, so I’m just going to pretend that it doesn’t have anything to do with me.
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it → allow → me
Russian intelligence services regularly try to kill defectors and dissidents, both within Russia’s borders and abroad.
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services → try → borders
Three months ago, Russian artist and satirist Semyon Skrepetsky was shot outside his home in Poland in an attack authorities said bore the hallmarks of a political assassination.
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authorities → shoot → assassination
And in a highly publicized 2018 case, two Russian military intelligence agents traveled to the English city of Salisbury under the guise of tourism.
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agents → publicize → tourism
…and 20 more, not listed.
The Aporia
