Unsurprising October surprise
October surprises aren’t really surprises anymore; they seem to happen so often during campaign seasons. And this year, only five days into the month, the first — but probably not the last — spasm of uncertainty disrupted the run-up to next month’s midterm elections.
OPEC+, the cartel of oil-producing countries, announced it would slash production by 2 million barrels a day. Their goal is to raise prices — and profits — and rates responded immediately. As of this writing, the average retail price of gasoline in the United States had reached $3.92 a gallon, up 12 cents in just a week.
A White House statement described President Biden as “disappointed by the shortsighted decision,” but that’s a huge understatement. Last July, Biden visited Saudi Arabia and gave a public and controversial fist bump to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, the kingdom’s de facto ruler. Since then, Washington, D.C., has lobbied Riyadh heavily to keep oil prices steady, but that fist bump elicited only a face slap as MBS ignored the president’s entreaties and sided with Moscow, which desperately wanted the price hike.
This October surprise couldn’t have come at a worse time for Biden and the Democrats. A Washington Post editorial accurately described it as “a setback for President Biden’s foreign policy and a blow to the United States and its allies on several fronts.”
One front is domestic politics. Inflation is always a particularly damaging issue because it affects every family, every day. Gallup reports 38 percent of Americans say the economy is the “most important” issue facing the country, with 17 percent specifically mentioning price increases — and that’s precisely how Republicans want voters to think.
“People are really dissatisfied with the economy, and voters are placing a ton of weight on inflation,” GOP strategist Donald Schneider told The Washington Post. “This is the issue voters are most displeased with Biden about.”
National polling averages bolster that view. While the president’s overall approval rating stands at 42.8 percent, only 37.8 percent support his handling of the economy, and his score on inflation sinks to 31.7 percent.
That’s why Republican candidates have poured $120 million into ads focused on inflation, reports the Post, “more than triple the figure for Democrats.” And that’s why Democrats like Sen. Mark Kelly, facing a tough reelection fight in Arizona, stated in a recent debate the president “was wrong” about oil and gas policy.
Democrats are hoping that outrage over the Supreme Court’s decision to get rid of abortion rights will energize voters — especially women — and that remains a valid aspiration. But only 4 percent of voters described abortion as the “most important” issue in the Pew survey. And every voter is a mixture of many identities, priorities and motivations.
True, about two-thirds of Americans express disapproval of the Court’s ruling. But those people are also sitting at the kitchen table after the kids are asleep, calculating the family budget and wondering how to cope with rising prices. While losing control of their own bodies infuriates many women, it also remains an abstract threat. Paying the bills presents a more direct problem.
Biden’s core theme this campaign season has been one of optimism: Things were bad, but now they’re getting better. Inflation threatens to cloud that message and dampen a national mood that was just starting to recover from the misery of COVID-19.
The second front impacted by OPEC+’S disruptive decision is foreign policy. Biden entered office with more overseas experience than any previous president — 12 years as chairman or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and eight years traveling the world as vice president. That background enabled him to repair relations with Western allies that had been shredded by Trump and build a powerful coalition to oppose Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
But now, higher oil prices mean more revenue for the Russian Czar, Putin the Puny, to cushion the impact of economic sanctions. They threaten to erode the resolve of European allies, who will struggle to afford skyrocketing heating bills this winter. And they could even undermine support for the war effort here in the U.S. Pew found 32 percent of Republicans and Gop-leaning independents express doubts about the cost of backing Kyiv, more than triple the number of waverers last March.
October has already been full of nasty surprises for Biden, and the month isn’t even half over. These unheralded outbursts could lead to an unhappy outcome for the Democrats next month.