DSCC FRIDAY TAKEAWAYS: NRSC’s Bad Vibes and Worse Map, A Chameleon Changes Its Skin… But Not Its Habits, Kao-ruption, and Crickets From Sullivan

DSCC FRIDAY TAKEAWAYS: NRSC’s Bad Vibes and Worse Map, A Chameleon Changes Its Skin… But Not Its Habits, Kao-ruption, and Crickets From Sullivan

TGIF. Welcome back to Friday Takeaways from the DSCC – your weekly update from the DSCC Press Team on what you need to know across the Senate battlegrounds. There are 3️⃣9️⃣ days until the midterms. 📲 DROP US A LINE: [email protected].

📉 GOP’S BAD VIBES AND WORSE MAP: With less than 40 days until the midterms, Republicans are “fret[ting] about the deteriorating national mood,” “sounding the alarm,” and “acknowledg[ing their] situation has deteriorated since Labor Day” as Democrats’ strong candidates outpace their flawed GOP opponents, amid widespread “anger” over “brutal” gas prices and “Trump’s handling of the economy and the Iran War.”

• 😢 SCOTT FREE: NRSC Chair Tim Scott told Republicans that they are “in the fight for [their] lives” as wall-to-wall coverage details how “meaningful shares of non-MAGA Republicans are turning away” from the party and the GOP stares down a voter enthusiasm problem that is “spilling beyond swing states into red bastions such as Kansas, Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa” – causing “growing anxiety” as party officials and even GOP Senators concede that they “may lose in the midterm.”
• 🩹 TRIAGE SEASON: In the final weeks of the election, Democratic Senate candidates “lead in most battleground state polls,” while Republicans are reportedly facing “hard choices this fall as they shape their strategy for keeping the Senate,” as they “consider moving money away from races where its candidates are struggling to gain traction.” Somebody’s about to find out they’re getting left out in the cold…

💰 KAO-RUPTION: A new shocking report from ProPublica lays out in “detail” how Senator Susan Collins was a “willing participant” and the “most important patron” at the center of a pay-for-play corruption scheme – allegedly taking donations around “official action” that included steering “tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding” from her senior position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to her major donor Martin Kao, who is now convicted and in prison for fraud. 

• 🐄 HOLY KAO: The report describes “voluminous” details about how Collins herself met “face-to-face” with participants in the scheme – telling them “you’ve seen me deliver” – meetings between senior Collins campaign operatives, and lengthy “email correspondence between Navatek and Collins’ inner circle.” The scheme drew a lengthy FBI investigation, which ended when President Trump returned to office.
• 📇 STILL ON PAYROLL?: Multiple individuals named in the reporting around the scheme still “remain in Collins’ inner circle,” including “the finance director for her 2026 reelection effort,” and the chair of the “main Collins super PAC.”
• ⚖️ SAVED BY THE BELL: Now, as Collins faces “arguably the toughest re-election campaign of her three-decade career,” legal experts are sounding the alarm about these “very serious allegations of corruption” and demanding answers about why the FBI’s inquiry was closed under the Trump administration, as the story “dominate[s] basically every major news outlet in Maine.”
• 🐝 THIS ONE COULD STING: Election analysts argue that Collins’ “shocking” display of “corruption of the highest order” “‘could sting’ Collins’ re-election chances” and is giving voters “pause” as they begin “reconsider[ing] the support that they may have had for [her].”
• 🚪 KNOCK KNOCK: Meanwhile in Portland, Democrats held a press conference outside of her office to condemn her corruption and call her out for being “beholden to wealthy donors.” No answer, as usual…
• 📋 OLD HABITS DIE HARD: This week’s ProPublica investigation was far from the first time that Susan Collins’ corruption has been exposed:
  
  • While Mainers struggle with rising costs, Collins’ wealth has grown by millions since coming to D.C., while she remains the only member of the Maine delegation to oppose ending congressional stock trading.
    • In 2024 alone, her stock portfolio grew by nearly 80%.
    • Collins also violated the STOCK Act by failing to report her husband’s stock trades at least 25 times, on transactions with a value of up to $445,000.
  • Collins is no stranger to the lobbyist pay-to-play pipeline thanks to her wealthy former lobbyist husband.
    • Collins has taken more than $1.2 million from lobbyists and has repeatedly refused to crack down on corruption – failing seven times to support a ban on members of Congress becoming lobbyists. She was even given an award at this year’s “lobbyist prom.”
  • Collins has the backing of more than 100 billionaires and their spouses and has received more money from private equity than any other elected politician in America.
  • Collins voted five times against resolutions that could have ended the Iran War. Meanwhile, Collins’ stock portfolio has surged – she and her husband hold up to $115,000 in natural gas stocks, which have potentially raked in thousands more for the couple since the war began.

🎨 CHANGING COLORS: Despite national backlash, nearly every Senate Republican, including those in tight races in key Senate battleground states, just voted to continue the price-hiking war in Iran – which has gas prices approaching “their highest level of the year” and diesel prices “registering new daily all-time highs.”

• 🦎 LIKE A CHAMELEON: This comes after GOP Senate candidates shamelessly and desperately scrambled to paper over their extensive records supporting, advocating for, and defending the unpopular war – including Sens. Husted and Sullivan, who tried to claim they wanted to end the war, only to vote to continue it today.
• 📖 READ MORE HERE

🪑 CHAIR’S REPORT: DSCC Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand laid out in a recent interview how Senate Democrats are in the strongest position yet to reclaim the majority. She discussed how “our candidates are better, and they are stronger and they are on-message to what voters actually care about,” emphasizing how Democrats’ relentless focus on “cost of groceries, cost of housing, [and] cost of healthcare” is “resonating, pretty much everywhere.”

⛽ GAS ME UP: This comes as the cost of gas and diesel, fertilizer and food continues to climb, with gas prices approaching “their highest level of the year” and diesel prices “registering new daily all-time highs,” as a result of the Iran war, which every GOP candidate is on record supporting and advocating for. 

• 📈 HIGH PRICES, HIGHER RETURNS: Republican Senate candidates are now shamelessly scrambling to distance themselves from their extensive records backing the unpopular war and dismissing voters’ economic pain all while they see “their stock portfolios soar […] because of their investments in oil and gas.”
• 🗳️ PAYING AT THE PUMP AND THE POLLS: With nearly 40 days until the midterm elections, new data shows that “voters blame Republicans for rising gas prices by a 30-point margin” – and that they “trust the Democratic Party more” to bring gas costs down. Analysts are calling gas prices “a killer issue for the Republicans,” which has  “decided midterms many times” and likely “will again” thanks to voters’ growing “frustration over prices.”

⏳ TEN YEARS AT HIS SIDE: Meanwhile, in another bombshell report, Paxton was exposed this week for spending “more than a decade cultivating a political alliance with Paul Pressler,” the infamous pedophile pastor and GOP power broker who led the Southern Baptist Convention – with Paxton calling Pressler a man he “admired and respected” and naming him to his advisory committee when he first became Attorney General. 

• ⚠️ CHECKS DIDN’T STOP: Paxton reportedly accepted campaign donations from the Presslers even after the child abuse allegations became public, and the report concluded that Paxton “built his political career in part on the backing of a man later called a ‘monster’ and ‘dangerous predator’ by the Southern Baptist Convention.”
• 🗣️ PREDATOR PROTECTOR PAXTON: But that wasn’t the only time Paxton was called out for his ties to child predators this week – at his rally this weekend, an attendee confronted him and demanded answers on the Epstein-style sweetheart plea deal he gave an admitted child molester that let him out of jail in mere days without having to register as a sex offender… WATCH:
• 🇨🇳 CCP(AXTON): Ken Paxton’s extensive and well-documented ties to the Chinese Communist Party took center stage in the Texas Senate race this week after Paxton was exposed for being bankrolled by Chinese investors trying to buy Texas land and “facilitate the exact kind of Chinese investments he has criticized” in ads, according to bombshell new reporting in the Houston Chronicle…
• 🏙️ BEIJING BACKERS: According to the report, Paxton has received $40,000 from donors with links to Chinese real estate companies. Two of the donors previously worked for Modern Land, a company with a Chinese Communist Party branch, and began donating to Paxton this year and haven’t given to other federal candidates. These China-linked real estate developers who are bankrolling Paxton’s campaign now work to facilitate wealthy China investors looking for help buying Texas land, “expanding into AI data center development,” and have built major projects that have “drawn criticism from conservative activists.”
• ✈️ EUROPE ON THE BRAIN: Looks like that wasn’t Paxton’s only headline-making flub at a rally last weekend… In a now-deleted social media post, Paxton seems to have confused Cypress, Texas, with Cyprus, the island off Europe… Maybe it’s because he’s spent a little too much time in Europe?

🌈 A CHAMELEON CHANGES ITS SKIN: New reporting from the Alaska Current exposed Dan Sullivan’s ties to yet another associate of Jeffrey Epstein this week… According to the report, Sullivan accepted donations from disgraced billionaire Leon Black months AFTER Black’s ties to Epstein first became public. Black was held in contempt of Congress this week for refusing to elaborate on his relationship with Epstein… 

• 🌳 BUT NOT ITS HABITS: Black’s extensive ties to Epstein include having his name appear in the flight logs for Epstein’s plane, and he paid Epstein $150 million – making him “the latest, and most high-profile, Epstein associate to be revealed as being on Sullivan’s donor list.”
• 🦗CRICKETS FROM SULLIVAN ON CORRUPTION: Alaska Democrats kicked off a weeklong extravaganza to spotlight Sullivan’s corruption: “Fat Cat Week.” Over the week, Alaska Democrats highlighted Sullivan’s self-dealing, self-enriching record… that includes raking in record dividends as his family’s company raised prices, tripling his wealth while in the Senate, and accepting thousands in donations from associates of Jeffrey Epstein after voting against releasing the Epstein files.

🏠 THE PROPERTY LINE: Weeks after CNN’s KFILE released a damning report exposing GOP Senate candidate Mike Collins for his “close ties to White nationalist influencer” – his son-in-law David Alan Scheer – the fallout continued this week after Haaretz revealed that Collins allowed Scheer – an admitted neo-Nazi propagandist – to build and live on Collins’ own property, where Scheer continues to produce white nationalist and neo-Nazi propaganda. 

• 🎥 NO DENYING IT: Haaretz reports that “in a video about building a shed on the property that Scheer posted on November 12, 2024 he confirmed” that Collins gave him “a parcel” of his land. “We’ve got seven acres beside their 40 or 50,” Scheer says in one of his videos. According to Haaretz, Collins’ land is where the neo-Nazi propagandist “film[s] antisemitic content that he shares online,” including videos “where he describes why ‘I’m NOT a Judeo Christian’ and ‘Why Christians are ‘God’s Chosen People’’ and ‘NOT THE JEWS.’”
• 📁 RELEASE THE TALLEY FILES: Meanwhile, Collins’ additional ties to white nationalists took the spotlight this week as Senator Jon Ossoff held a press conference to demand that Collins release every form of communication between himself, his associates, and any notorious white nationalists with ties to Collins or his office. Sen. Ossoff’s demands follow the sudden replacement of Collins’ top aide, Kip Talley, who was revealed to have worked with white nationalists, including Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer, to try to get a Holocaust denier out of jail.

💻DATA CENTER DIVIDENDS: North Carolinians are reading in Fox News that Whatley has made thousands off of his stock holdings in data center companies (including GE Vernova, a massive data center energy provider), all while downplaying concerns about data centers on the campaign trail… As Fox reports: “Those holdings raise questions about whether Whatley or his family stands to benefit from his support of data center expansion, an issue that has drawn national attention over community zoning, energy use and state growth.”

• 🤨 MICHAEL WHO? At a rally in Gastonia last week, Republican voters “did not even know who Whatley was” or “expressed a lack of interest in—and even disdain for—Whatley” … His own base says that his ads are “misleading, if not full of lies” and that they “don’t like what he stands for.”
• 📻 BROKEN RECORD: In an interview on O’Connor & Company on Thursday, Whatley quadrupled down on the Iran War despite rising gas prices, saying we need to “stay the course when it comes to Iran” after being asked about the cost of diesel…
  • O’Connor & Company: “Diesel prices seem to be the sort of topic of the week…What’s your answer to people who, they don’t really care what caused it, they want a solution.”
  • Whatley: “We need to make sure that we stay the course when it comes to Iran.”
• ⛽ EASY FOR HIM TO SAY: Now, as North Carolinians face over $4 per gallon for gas and $6 for diesel, Whatley is insisting that “we are not getting gouged” at the gas pump despite himself admitting that North Carolina farmers are facing record-high fuel prices from the war… Don’t forget that, like the data center industry, Whatley has up to $1.39 million invested in the oil and gas industry, which has spiked by up to “$219,660” since the war began…
• 🇻🇪 RICHER BY MONDAY: Now, Whatley is touting increased oil production in Venezuela – and conveniently leaving out the fact that it’s spiking his stock portfolio… In a recent interview, Whatley bragged that “we’re producing more oil right now than the rest of the world…The deal that [the president] just struck with Venezuela is tremendously important about getting those resources on.” One problem: Reporting uncovered Whatley’s “windfall” after his stock portfolio spiked following the Trump administration’s pledge to increase oil production in Venezuela earlier this year – a move Whatley celebrated. These actions spiked his up to $1.39 million in oil and gas stocks, allowing him to reap up to $63,000 in a SINGLE WEEKEND.
• 📞 CALL HIM, MAYBE: Meanwhile, new reporting from the Asheville Citizen-Times revealed that “recovery czar” Whatley has had hardly any communication with local, state, or federal disaster recovery officials, despite being tasked with delivering federal aid to Western North Carolina. After nearly two years as the “recovery czar,” Whatley only has “six text messages and five telephone calls totaling 38 minutes” to show for it.

📝 NOTED: This week, a Politico report revealed that the top GOP Senate super PAC is “sounding the alarm in Iowa” – saying that Ashley Hinson is losing the race because of her unwavering support for the costly Iran War that’s driving up prices for Iowa families… Now, Hinson is shamelessly and desperately trying to paper over her extensive record supporting, advocating for, and defending the unpopular war… Unfortunately for her, Iowans saw right through her empty statements after she was brutally community-noted on Twitter:

• 🗳️ LUCKY NUMBER SEVEN: Just last week, Hinson cast her seventh vote to continue the war in Iran as it devastates Iowa with “record diesel prices,” “surg[ing]” gas costs, fertilizer prices “near peak levels,” and inflation higher than the national average.
• 🤫 SAYS ONE THING: Hinson is continuing to publicly defend the war in Iran and downplay the impact on Iowans, despite admitting in private that it’s becoming a “political liability.”
• 🛢️ WAR CHEST: Hinson has raked in tens of thousands of dollars from Big Oil companies seeing record profits up to $14 billion from the Iran war.

🔧 BUILT DIFFERENT: Damning new reporting out this week from Michigan Advance laid out how Rogers stretched the truth by repeatedly claiming he worked on a car assembly line… But a UAW and Michigan Advance investigation found Rogers is “greatly inflating his experience” to mislead Michiganders, prompting the UAW to draw comparisons to “stolen valor.” Rogers has consistently claimed he “worked in an automotive factory,” where he “built” vehicles on an “assembly line,” but the facility where Rogers claims he worked did not build cars, nor did it have an assembly line; and the Chrysler Sebring he claims to have built wasn’t manufactured until 1995 – more than a decade after Rogers allegedly worked there…

• 🔙 TOO LATE, MIKE: CNN’s KFILE exposed Price Hike Mike Rogers’ consistent, full-throated support for the Iran war despite his eleventh-hour election pivot shamelessly trying to “campaign against the pain it caused” … CNN reports that Rogers “consistently supported President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran” from the very start of the war, calling it “long overdue,” “the best opportunity for peace in the Middle East I think I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” and “the right thing to do” – while repeatedly predicting over the course of months that the war would be over “soon.”
• 🫵 YOU OWN IT: According to KFILE’s investigation, Rogers argued in March that “Americans should unite behind the military operation against Iran and ‘get it done right’ before debating whether the intervention was wise,” saying there “shouldn’t be a date” when the war should definitively end. In July, while Michigan gas prices were still skyrocketing, Rogers “supported giving Trump more time on the war,” saying “I don’t mind giving the president authority to continue [the Iran war]. You can’t stop in mid-negotiation. I think that would not be good for America.”
• 🎬 ROGERS’ REWRITE: MS NOW’s Chris Hayes and Jen Psaki exposed Mike Rogers for being a “long-time proponent of intervention in Iran” who supported Trump’s war from the start, pledged to give Trump “the authority to continue” the Iran war, and made “dismissive” comments as Michiganders struggled with skyrocketing gas prices…
• MS NOW’s CHRIS HAYES: Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers released this ad highlighting the impact the war is having on prices just yesterday. […] The thing is, Mike Rogers has long called for U.S. war with Iran, and even gave this dismissive answer on the war’s impact on gas prices back when it was launched in March. […] ‘We’re gonna be fine. We’ve got plenty of oil.’ It is a global commodity. It’s priced globally. We learn this all the time.
• MS NOW’S JEN PSAKI: Then there’s Michigan’s Republican candidate for Senate, Mike Rogers, a long-time proponent of intervention in Iran, who is now so intent on distancing himself from this war […] Just two months ago, [Rogers] was saying things like this: […] ‘I mean, I don’t mind giving the president authority to continue. You can’t stop in mid-negotiation. I think that would not be good for America.’ But you can cut a campaign ad, I guess?
• 🏥 BAD MEDICINE: Meanwhile, to mark this week’s anniversary of the ACA’s Patient’s Bill of Rights going into effect, the Michigan Democratic Party held a virtual press conference to call out Mike Rogers’ dangerous plans to gut healthcare and spike Michiganders’ monthly premiums while his campaign is bankrolled by Big Pharma and the insurance industry. 

🔁 FOOL ME TWICE: New WMUR reporting reveals that on the campaign trail, Sununu said he’s “willing to” privatize Social Security again, exposing New Hampshire seniors’ retirement savings to the risky stock market. Sununu — who “helped lead the charge” to privatize Social Security when he last held office — told voters, “I was willing to do it before. And I’m willing to do it again.”

• 📜 AT THIS A WHILE: In Congress, he repeatedly introduced legislation to privatize Social Security that would have exposed Granite Staters’ retirement savings to stock market crashes and increased profits for Wall Street firms. Sununu has long been a “leading figure in the effort” to privatize Social Security, and he co-sponsored legislation that had been projected to accelerate the timeline of Social Security’s insolvency.
• 🗣️ CONCORD CALL OUT: In response, Democrats held a press conference in Concord calling out John Sununu’s record of trying to privatize Social Security, repeatedly voting for Medicare cuts, and saying he would’ve voted for the toxic GOP plan to cut Granite Staters’ health care…
• 🚚 SPECIAL DELIVERY: This press conference came before the NHGOP’s Amos Tuck Dinner, featuring Florida Senator Rick Scott, who once authored a plan that would’ve “sunset Social Security and Medicare” within just five years. Driving through Concord and Manchester, a digital billboard truck highlighted Sununu’s abysmal anti-senior record.
• 🎿 DOWNHILL FROM HERE: Meanwhile, new Granite Post reporting shows that Sununu’s investments in his family’s ski resort and related assets have benefited from more than $28 million in taxpayer money… Sununu owns up to $600,000 worth of assets through his stake in the Waterville Valley ski resort, the Tyrell Development company, and real estate, helping him pad his pockets as “Waterville Valley’s total property valuation more than doubled” from 2019 to 2024…

🔔 FAITH LEADERS SAY… Jewish and Black faith leaders across Cleveland came together to condemn Jon Husted for hiring a Nazi enthusiast as a member of his senior campaign team. The Washington Post reported that Jon Husted hired a Nazi sympathizer “wearing an SS uniform” as his political director, who used a “photo of SS soldiers as his Facebook profile photo and recently added to a public playlist of songs celebrating Rhodesia,” an apartheid colony that has become a rallying symbol for white supremacists.

📍 IN THE STATES: 

• AK – Anchorage Daily News: Opinion: We can trust Mary Peltola to fight for Alaska families
• GA – 11 Alive: Sen. Ossoff urges Rep. Collins to release transcripts on aide’s alleged white nationalist ties
• IA – MS NOW: ‘IOWANS HAVE HAD ENOUGH!’: Dem Senate nominee Turek blasts GOP rival Hinson for backing Trump’s war
• ME – Forbes: Susan Collins Bribery Report Throws Wrench Into Razor-Thin Senate Battle
• MI – CNN: Michigan GOP Senate candidate who praised the Iran war now campaigns against the pain it caused
• NC – WXII: Former Governor Roy Cooper makes stop in Piedmont Triad ahead of November election
• OH – WLWT: Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown meets voters in Hamilton
• TX – KVII: Talarico calls for reversing USDA cuts, tariffs to aid Panhandle ranchers

🤳 TWEETS OF THE WEEK: 

Maeve Coyle
@maevemcoyle 

Maddy McDaniel
@maddymcdaniel14

Monica Robinson
@mo_robz

Tommy Garcia
@Tommy_D_Garcia

Joe Bush
@TheJoeBush

Jackson Buttler
@jackson_buttler

Suhani Patel
@suhaniiipatel

📲 DROP US A LINE: [email protected]