Heating oil now costs more than $6 a gallon, up from about $3.50 a year ago, and the Iran war gets much of the blame. A week before Election Day, the price is hurting Republicans in three close Senate races, and the administration's emergency oil loan covers less than one day of winter use.
Attorney General Todd Blanche says the Justice Department's Alaska lawsuit is not meant to stop certification of the Senate election. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski says the department "should never have filed" it, just days before Nov. 3.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola both spoke to Alaska Native leaders in Anchorage, about a week before Election Day. Alaska Natives are about one-fifth of the state's population, and the race is tied up in a Trump-ordered Justice Department lawsuit.
Democrats and voting-rights groups filed Friday to defend Alaska's election against a Justice Department suit that Trump says he ordered. It could stop certification if Sen. Dan Sullivan loses.
A motion to dismiss the Justice Department's Alaska Senate suit quotes President Trump's own words and asks the judge to consider sanctions against the government's lawyers. The suit could block certification of the Nov. 3 result.
The Justice Department sued 11 days before the election, citing two candidates named Dan Sullivan. Election experts call the move unprecedented and legally thin, with Senate control possibly at stake.
A new poll shows Trump's approval among rural voters back above water after a bad September. Republicans still face close Senate races in Iowa, Kansas and Alaska, and the poll did not find that rural voters had turned against him.
The Justice Department asked a federal judge to bar Alaska from certifying any Senate result it says could be "impacted by voter confusion." The suit comes 11 days before the Nov. 3 election.
With the Nov. 3 midterm less than two weeks away, Democrats in at least six Senate races are attacking Republicans over the Medicaid cuts in the GOP's 2025 budget law and promising to restore the money. Republicans are mostly pointing to a $50 billion rural health fund, which ends in four years. The cuts are permanent.