“PUT SOME DIESEL IN THE TANK” – GOP Senate Candidates Have Been Fundraising For Gas Money [MeidasTouch News]

MeidasTouch News: “The economy is so bad Republican candidates for U.S. Senate have been fundraising for gas money from their constituents”

GOP Senate Candidates have told financially struggling Americans to “learn how to budget,” “earn more,” “be patriots,” and that they will be “fine”

New reporting from MeidasTouch News has exposed GOP Senate candidates Susan Collins, Dan Sullivan, and Mike Collins’ “callous move” of “fundraising for gas money from their constituents” “despite voting for and backing Donald Trump’s war in Iran which is the reason for the high gas prices,” which are approaching “their highest level of the year,” and diesel prices “registering new daily all-time highs.”

Republican Senate candidates are now shamelessly scrambling in a desperate attempt to paper over 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.”

See for yourself:

MeidasTouch News: GOP Senate Candidates Have Been Fundraising For Gas Money

• The economy is so bad Republican candidates for U.S. Senate have been fundraising for gas money from their constituents. In a callous move adding insult to injury in this economy, Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, and Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia have included asks for gas money in recent grassroots fundraising emails so that they can travel around their states to campaign.
• This despite voting for and backing Donald Trump’s war in Iran which is the reason for the high gas prices, as well as denying that working people are struggling in Trump’s economy.
• Senator Dan Sullivan recently sent an email to his donor list “personally” asking for small-donor donations of $3, $5, or $10 with the disclosure that funds will go to, among other things, “pay for gas as we visit isolated rural areas of Alaska.”

• Gas in rural Alaska is now at $10 a gallon. Sullivan has voted for the war in Iran multiple times by voting against war powers resolutions. He has claimed that the economy is headed in the “right direction,” while Alaskans have paid $134 million more for gas than they would have if the Iran hadn’t happened.
• Senator Susan Collins’ campaign sent an email asking constituents to chip in to “fuel the tour,” writing, “Organizing a tour of this scale takes a lot of coordination, enthusiasm, and quite literally fuel. Every dollar goes directly toward keeping our team on the road, our events fully stocked, and our bus powered from stop to stop.”
• Susan Collins also voted to continue the war in the Middle East, which has closed the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices to skyrocket worldwide. Collins has quite literally profited off the rise in gas prices; she holds up to $115,000 in natural gas stock. Between the start of the war and April 1st her gas stock increased by $24,480.

• Collins has also notoriously used only private planes to travel while she campaigns, racking up six figures in expenditures on private flights in what was described as “the kind of luxury air travel more often associated with celebrities and CEOs than a Senate race in Maine.” Now she wants working Mainers to help pay for her luxury private planes.
• Representative Mike Collins of Georgia has a gas money donation section on his website and the Republican Party fundraising site WinRed which reads, “Put some diesel in the tank. We can’t win if we’re running on fumes. It’s a long road to Election Day. Your donation today gives Mike the fuel he needs to go the distance.”

• Mike Collins voted against ending the war as lately as three weeks ago. He praised the war and said Trump is doing a “fantastic job.” Collins said he “wholeheartedly supports Trump’s agenda” and told Georgians the “economy is moving.” Georgians have paid a mind-blowing extra $1.8 billion for gas than they would have without the Iran war. Each household in Georgia has paid an extra $463 on gas than they would have if Trump had not started a war of choice in the Middle East.
• Rather than footing the bill for their campaign gas themselves with high gas prices they are directly responsible for, these Republicans are actually asking their small-dollar grassroots donors; the working Americans who can only give $10 at a time, to foot the bill for their gas money, while they actively campaign to continue the policies that are hurting those same Americans.

See also: DSCC: NEW DATA: GOP-Backed Iran War Costs Voters $56 Billion at the Pump as Republican Senate Candidates Tell Them to “Be Patriots” & “Learn How to Budget”; DSCC: ICYMI: New Reports Expose GOP Cashing In on Big Oil Donations as Iran War Spikes Gas Prices; DSCC: ICYMI: Dan Sullivan “Begs Donors to Help Him ‘Pay for Gas’ after Voting to Continue Trump’s War”; DSCC: New Ad Campaign Slams Price Hike Mike Rogers for Dismissing Skyrocketing Michigan Gas Prices; DSCC: IN THE STATES: GOP Senate Candidates’ Cost-Raising Agenda Continues Driving Up Gas Prices Across the U.S.; DSCC: QUICK CLIPS: Tafoya Tells Minnesotans to “Take One Less Trip to Starbucks” and to “Just Try to be Patriots” as Gas Prices Skyrocket