For those wondering about the correlation between energy prices and the mood of the electorate — because of course we are, right? — here’s the graphic you have been waiting for:

For every $1 gasoline prices go up, Trump loses roughly 6pts in his approval rating (about 16.6 cents for every point).

By means of example, gasoline rose from $3.01 in February to $4.53 in September for a net gain of $1.52 per gallon.

As a consequence, Trump’s approval rating? Fell 10 points.

Here is another number we should read into in our post-tariff environment where the war in Iran and the Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries are making energy expensive:

What the American public is telling the White House is that no one ultimately cares about the question of who made things unaffordable, but they are most certainly remembering who promised to make it better. Lessons for Spanberger, perhaps — but most certainly lessons for the Trump White House as it chose to tackle the Islamic Republic of Iran without selling the need to the American public.

In short, energy prices are high across the board, particularly in Virginia but demonstrably across America — and voters have dropped their hands from their hearts to their wallets.

An Easily Swayed Electorate

Now for the red meat. It is mid-October and folks are wondering exactly where things stand. Are the Democrats on the cusp of a Blue Tsunami? Or is the U.S. Senate going to remain a mighty fortress?

Resources in politics tend to follow a sure bet. If the Democrats truly believed they were staring down a national D+9 electorate? They would be spending their money a lot differently than they are now:

As one can see, the Democrats so far have been outspent. Where they have been spending really isn’t moving the numbers all that much:

$49.9 million to move the electorate 1 point? That’s what we call a bad investment.

Bear in mind that Democrats blew $80 million to gerrymander Virginia in order to change our 6-5 seats into 10-1 seats. That’s $20 million per seat — and no one nationally is dumping another $20 million into Virginia’s current seats in order to swing them towards the Democratic column.

In Virginia: Too Early for Postmortems

An old hand once taught me that by mid-October, the screaming and shouting is just about over. All the money that is going to be raised has been raised, the third of the electorate that remains undecided is pretty much on a predictable path, and the game goes to turnout and enthusiasm.

Roughly 10% of the electorate has no idea who they are voting for when they go into the polling booth in November. Or at least, that used to be the old saw. Nowadays, the Democrats have a pretty good ground game getting people to “lock in” their votes early. Republicans are still catching up. Yet voter enthusiasm in November on Election Day still matters — it is a Republican day now with the objective being to drown out the Democratic early voting advantage.

So by measurement, where is the smart money going to in Virginia’s house races? VPAP had a somewhat helpful graph for Q3 fundraising which illustrates where last minutes resources are going to and where both parties are most concerned.

Clearly Virginia’s 2nd District remains a battlefield, as Democrat Elaine Luria is finally in a position to match Kiggans dollar for dollar there. Meanwhile in VA-01, Shannon Taylor still lags behind Republican stalwart Rob Wittman. Remember that the RNC has plenty to spend on these races.

Do you see panic in those numbers? I don’t.

Interesting to me is VA-07, where Democratic incumbent Eugene Vindman continues to raise boatloads of cash against Republican challenger Doug Ollivant whose fight against blood cancer has effectively taken him off the campaign trail. Yet the fundraising and the spend signals that either Vindman is in a fight for his life, that Vindman is simply raising money for the DCCC, or that Vindman is one hell of a fundraiser.

Remember: The Democrats Have Their Problems, Too

Let’s add one more layer to make things interesting, shall we? When folks are asked the question as to whether Democrats are actually on the right path, the answer from the American public is a resounding no according to Atlas Intel:

84% believe they have a crisis of leadership. 68% believe Democrats are out of touch, and another 67% believe Democrats have betrayed their constituents. 54% believe the woke nonsense has gone too far and that 43% has a sizeable contingent which believes Woke 2.0 hasn’t gone far enough.

What’s bothering Americans right now? Thread together two strands where one color is a general dissatisfaction with the major parties who have all sorts of reasons to oppose the other, and the other thread a color which represents a total failure to offer substantive answers to America’s challenges:

Crime is starting to rise again. Yet the overwhelming concern for most Americans is and remains the economy, affordability, and immigration.

Safeguarding democracy is merely a partisan marker — no one actually believes a Democratic Party who robbed Bernie Sanders of the nomination in 2016 only to follow it up by robbing the party of the chance to select a nominee in 2024 actually has a definition of democracy other than keeping raw power in their hands. In fact, this is a good number — 63% of Americans still want to live and work with one another. Fertile ground for conservatives.

Virginia may not be a MAGA state, but it is by no means woke. Spanberger’s recent polling troubles and the magnitude of the effort to restore some degree of popularity not just among that 63% but among her own progressive base is a wonder to behold, mostly because the mirage of Spanberger’s centrist image is merely being upheld by blunting the progressive inclinations of the General Assembly — not necessarily by promoting centrism on her own volition.

Which frankly — if one is a reader of tea leaves — is what the electorate is asking for right now.

Restoring Public Faith in the Public Trust

For both parties, there needs to be a wider recognition that the grand strategy of achieving power and then doing whatever the hell we want is failing America — and by extension, failing Virginia:

One wonders if we asked this question of Virginia institutions — the Supreme Court of Virginia, Virginia State Troopers, the General Assembly, the Virginia Department of Transportation, our DMV, our local government, local law enforcement, first responders — whether we would see similar correlation here.

I suspect that the answer would be correlative, but not causal and certainly not direct. Dissatisfaction with the General Assembly would probably be very high due to the nature of what it is. With our Virginia State Troopers? Hardly. With VDOT? Maybe — unless we include the victims of “Terry Tolls” on our HOT Lanes. DMV? Who likes standing in line?

Yet with local government, local law enforcement, and our first responders, I would bet that most Virginians think very highly of our local law enforcement and first responders, even if they would be absolutely horrified to learn how the sausage gets made in local government.

Trust in institutions among conservatives remains at an all-time low. When was the last time you saw conservatives rally for public education? When was the last time the political left allowed conservatives to voice concerns and then acted upon those concerns?

The same could be said for academia, where students are drilled and indoctrinated far more often than they are educated — and in degrees ill-suited for the 21st century (or the 11th century, for that matter).

Conclusion: Cheer Up! The Worst is Yet to Come!

The bottom line here is that the national spend isn’t reflecting a Blue Tsunami or a Blue Wave. Democrats will most likely take the U.S. House — Republicans will most likely keep the U.S. Senate.

In Virginia, the epicenter is still around VA-02. Democrats just aren’t spending to win in VA-01 and are spending an awful lot defending VA-07 propping up Eugene Vindman against a guy fighting cancer. Expect VA-07 to be the weathervane as to how 2027 is going to look for Virginia Republicans. Whether Perriello gets close to McGuire in VA-05 is anyone’s guess, but for a seat that is R+26? I’m just not seeing it right now. Perriello will outperform, but there will be no second coming of what we saw in 2008.

And forget VA-06. Ben Cline has that seat well in hand.

So three seats to watch in Virginia.

Yet the second year of any gubernatorial term is the term to watch out for. If Spanberger believes she needs to placate her progressive base, then expect the litany of horribles to be long — court packing, redistricting, collective bargaining, and right-to-work all go to the altar as supplication to the gods.

Alternatively, if the tea leaves for 2026 read as “if-you’re-in-you’re-out” then Virginia Republicans have some excellent ju-jitsu to play on energy, affordability, job creation (or cratering so far), and the reversal of the Youngkin-Miyares renaissance. Moreover, there’s an opportunity for Senate Republicans to not just hold the line but begin putting down a few markers for where Virginia Republicans are willing to fight on principle — and as we learned in the wilderness years in the 1980s and 1990s, Virginia Republicans are always better on the attack.

The important part is this: We are going to have to figure out what we are for rather than what we are against, and we need to decide whether or not we are building up public trust in our institutions or whether or not we are committed to the task of creative destruction — good, bad, or otherwise — toward the institutions which are failing Virginia families.

For those of us who are movement conservatives, the task will be to remember that it is free minds, free markets, and a free society that made America great — and that there is fault with both political parties as they have strayed from conservative orthodoxy and created the problems we see today.

Voters want answers — not platitudes and not 192-page reports generated by AI on energy policy or any other policy. Clear, direct, and forward together.

Yet let’s start with hearing what voters are saying first. We may not be able to impact much in Washington, but we can most certainly start calling out the problems in Richmond and tackling them with solutions rather than mere words, and through civil disagreement rather than polemics.

As for Virginia, it might be worse than what happens nationally. Or it might be that Kiggans holds on and the doomers have a lot of explaining to do in VA-01, VA-05, and VA-06. And if on an outsider’s chance Ollivant beats Vindman…

…but let’s start thinking about what Virginia Republicans are for rather than what we are against. The Democrats aren’t as strong as they think, and Republicans aren’t as weak as we seem.

Nota Bene: One Last Thing…

N.B.: For those concerned about the Republican Party of Virginia’s involvement in our races, remember that RPV is the sum totality of our unit and district committees — and nothing more. Given that Virginia has unlimited donation amounts to candidates, most state money goes directly to the caucuses and to the candidates.

As for who powers the apparatus, it is you and me who are to blame if our unit committees or district committees aren’t performing. The solution? Bloom where you are planted, volunteer, and build those little Burkean platoons. Find out where your precinct is and offer to cover it from 6am to 7pm — and find neighbors and families and volunteers willing to help.

I have always argued that if we could find 10,000 conservative volunteers willing to become RPV members at $9/mo + unit committee dues that we would carry every election for the next 20 years. No one has heard this yet, but one day maybe I’ll find enough friends willing to help do that.

In time.