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Soaring gas prices, like inflation generally, will likely hurt President Bidens popularity and Democrats political prospects. But theres some debate over just how threatening the price increase will be, and whether there is a clear connection between gas prices and election outcomes.

Prices are rising across the country. According to US Energy Information Administration data, the average price for a retail gallon of gasoline has risen by about 25 percent in the past two months, and by about 70 percent since President Biden took office. Bidens decision to block US imports of Russian oil may well send prices even higher, as he acknowledged last week. (The future is uncertain, though oil prices have fallen back down somewhat in recent days.)

The effects of the broader trend have only begun to ripple through the American political system, and the potential consequences for Biden arent clear: Vladimir Putin bears primary responsibility for the most recent shock, and Bidens approval rating has actually risen by about 2 percentage points in recent weeks to around 43 percent, per FiveThirtyEights tracker, though that could be a temporary bounce from his State of the Union address. Still, if these high prices continue, theyll certainly be a centerpiece of Republicans attacks in this years midterm elections.

Will those attacks work? The effect of gas prices specifically is tougher to disentangle than one might think. One issue here is that gas price shocks often precede recessions or are accompanied by other economic woes. That makes it difficult to suss out whether its expensive gasoline or those other economic factors that are affecting voters. Some analysts have concluded its more the latter, and that gas prices on their own dont seem to affect elections much.

However, a study by Laurel Harbridge, Jon Krosnick, and Jeffrey Wooldridge found that rising gas prices seemed to hurt presidential approval: Between 1976 and mid-2007, each 10 cent gas price increase was followed by about a 0.6 percentage point drop in approval rating. (Prices have risen by about $1.73 since Biden took office, which would correspond to about a 10 point drop in approval. Thats about the decline hes seen since his inauguration, though there are surely other factors at play as well.)

One thing thats very clear, though, is that politicians believe high gas prices are very important. Thats illustrated in a noteworthy but mostly forgotten episode from the 2008 presidential election, when, for a brief stretch, gas prices hit record highs and it looked like they could determine the outcome of the election, sending the campaigns into a frenzy of position-taking.

A lot has changed in the 14 years since, but there are still some useful lessons from the 2008 saga.

By the spring of 2008, polls suggested that Democrats were narrow favorites to retake the White House. Incumbent president George W. Bushs approval ratings were in the toilet, bogged down by a weakening economy and his long, bloody Iraq war. Barack Obama led both in a long primary battle with Hillary Clinton and in polls against GOP nominee presumptive John McCain, giving him a good shot to become the nations first Black president.

And then, all of a sudden, the presidential campaigns became consumed by the price of gas. Gas prices soared in the first several months of 2008 at their peak in June, they were 30 percent higher than they were in January of that year. (The national average price rose to $4.16 a gallon in that span, equivalent to $5.48 in inflation-adjusted dollars.)

When asked in an open-ended format to name the economic or financial problem they have been hearing the most about in the news lately, fully 72% of Americans point to gas and oil prices, the Pew Research Center wrote in June 2008. No other issue comes close. The housing and mortgage crisis is a distant second. (Serious problems related to subprime lenders had become evident in 2007, and investment bank Bear Stearns had been bailed out in March 2008, but the crisiss biggest moments hadnt happened yet.)

So out came the policy proposals. McCain and Clinton both proposed a federal gas tax holiday; Obama pooh-poohed it, calling it pandering that would achieve little, and economists agreed.

Yet after the primary wrapped up in June and gas prices kept rising, Obama concluded he needed to offer voters something, and announced he supported a windfall profits tax on oil companies. (Economists dismissed this as pandering that would achieve little.)

Yet though the conventional wisdom is that bad economic conditions hurt the incumbent party, Republicans were surprisingly optimistic that the gas price issue could benefit them. The party soon coalesced around the message that what Americans needed was more oil and, specifically, to lift the federal ban on offshore oil drilling (drill, baby, drill, as the eventual slogan went). This was awkward for Democrats. Many in the party hated the idea due to potential environmental damage, and others pointed out it would be years before new drilling had even the slightest possible effect on prices. But it polled extraordinary well, getting 73 percent support.

Democrats squirmed, and as the summer went on, they gradually concluded they had to cave. In July, the number two Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, said he and Majority Leader Harry Reid were open to drilling and responsible production. And in August, after Obamas lead dropped several points in polls, he said he could support offshore drilling as part of a broader energy bill, and that hed tap the countrys Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try and drive down prices further. If the 2008 election was going to be fought on gas prices, Obama wasnt going to lose it by seeming intransigent.

In the end, all this position-taking was overtaken by events. The financial crisis of the Great Recession kicked into high gear that September, resulting in plummeting stocks, plunging demand, rising unemployment and falling gas prices. By Election Day, gas prices had dropped so much that they were about 22 percent lower than at the start of 2008. So the great gas price election showdown did not transpire.

The midterm elections are still nearly eight months away, and so theres ample time gas prices to move in either direction. But there are some comforting, and some not-so-comforting, implications in the 2008 gas price wars for Joe Biden.

Biden could take heart in the fact that the incumbent party the GOP managed to put Democrats on the defensive on this issue. Perhaps that means that its not inevitable that hell be blamed by voters for high gas prices, and that with the proper messaging, he can avert that outcome.

Yet its not clear that will work out so well for Democrats this year. For one, its the midterms, which is almost always a perilous election cycle for the incumbent presidents party. The issue of high gas prices may also inherently advantage Republicans somewhat, since the GOP is the party more identified with support for untrammeled fossil fuel production rather than environmental concerns. So though Bush was president as gas prices soared in 2008, the GOP could push an offshore drilling advocacy message.

Biden does not have the same play available to him he cant outflank Republicans on drilling, as indeed theyre already calling on him to massively expand domestic production far beyond Democrats comfort level. Still, he could be encouraged by the fact that, even before the 2008 financial crisis replaced that years gas price problem with something more dire, the Republican attacks werent enough to totally sink Obama in the polls.

While many global trends affecting the price of oil are out of Bidens hands, he does have the advantage of being able to use the powers of the presidency to ease the pain somewhat. Last November, he already announced he would tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to ease price increases, which he expanded on during his State of the Union address.

But by blocking Russian oil imports to the US, hes now embracing a policy he admits could send prices higher. Defending freedom is going to cost, Biden said last week. Now he has to hope voters agree that cost is worth it.

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High gas prices didnt doom Obama in 2008 and they might not sink Biden in 2022 - Vox.com

The impact of Russias unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has been devastating. And while the situation continues to escalate, so does the need for helpfrom emergency relief on the ground, to support for those fleeing to neighboring countries.

Many of our Obama leaders in Europe are on the front lines of this war. Devoted to creating lasting change in their communities, and advancing the principles of democracy, equality, and human dignity, they are assisting along the border and adapting their work to bravely support those in Ukraine during this time of crisis.

We reached out to our leaders network to identify the organizations listed below that are doing critical humanitarian work right now. We hope youll consider making a donation to amplify these efforts.

As President Obama stated, People of conscience around the world need to loudly and clearly condemn Russias actions and offer support for the Ukrainian people.

Ukrainian Obama Leader Yuliia Sachuks organization, Fight for Right, promotes and protects the human rights of people living with disabilities in her community. In response to the crisis, Fight for Right is coordinating accessible shelter, evacuations, and emergency servicesensuring those living with disabilities arent left out of the humanitarian efforts.

Obama Leader Andrs Lderer and his team at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee have been helping provide free-of-charge legal assistance and representation to refugees in Hungary for decades. Right now, they are focused on helping asylum seekers from Ukraine find professional and free legal assistance.

Following reports that a number of African and Indian students have faced discrimination and racism at the border of Poland while trying to escape to safety, Fundacja Ocalenie has stepped in to provide support.

The Kyiv Independent, an English-language media outlet, was launched three months ago and was created on the principles of independent journalism and free-press. The goal of their Go Fund Me campaign is to keep the accurate news coming.

This Polish organization is offering a free crisis hotline to assist people who are being affected by the Ukrainian crisis, including individuals who have fled the country, families worried about the well-being of their children, and those who have relatives in Ukraine and are feeling a sense of hopelessness.

A Hungarian nonprofit that has experience helping severely traumatized asylum seekers, refugees, and their family members. They provide counseling and advanced psychiatric support.

The Urgent Action Fund is helping support women, transgender, and nonbinary activists on the ground in and around Ukraine, by providing flexible funding, access to communication channels, and medical support.

IOM is scaling up its humanitarian operations in Ukraine and neighboring countries, providing emergency services in health, shelter, winter supplies, and protection.

This Polish NGO has been providing pro bono legal work for migrants and refugees since 2005. Due to the rapidly changing rules and individual cases of those fleeing Ukraine, the Association for Legal Intervention just launched a dedicated legal portal to provide prompt legal advice.

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How You Can Help the People of Ukraine - the Obama Foundation

In 2020 and early 2021 alone, more than 30 states passed at least 140 new police oversight and reform laws. In total, seven states have mandated the use of body cameras, five states have limited qualified immunity for officers (Colorado and New Mexico eliminated it), and at least 24 states have passed legislation restricting neck restraints.

Even before 2020, there were nationwide pushes for the use of body cameras by officers and to have cameras installed and operational on their vehicles.

Black Lives Matter has also experienced a backlash. Resentments always bubble to the surface when a movement experiences some success, and racists rise up to repel its advances. But thats not what Im talking about. The backlash that always feels like betrayal is the shifting of allegiances among supposed allies, the people who are with you only up to a point, the point at which your liberation threatens their privilege.

The same dynamic played out during the civil rights movement. A New York Times survey, conducted in the months following the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, found that a majority of white New Yorkers, a supposedly liberal bastion, believed the Negro civil rights movement had gone too far. Some of the respondents spoke of Black people getting everything on a silver platter and of reverse discrimination against white people.

When the Kerner Commission released its 1968 report pointing out inequality, highlighting the pernicious nature of police brutality and pushing the Johnson administration to invest heavily in improving Black peoples living conditions, Congress refused to act on any of those recommendations. Nor did it advance police reform alongside socioeconomic improvement, as the Black community wanted. Instead, as the Marshall Projects Nicole Lewis has written, the federal government responded by equipping police with new tools to control violent expressions of civil unrest.

Today, Democrats are once again shrinking from or, in some cases, running from police reform in the face of rising violent crime data, worried about being labeled soft on crime, or worse, a defund-the-police pusher.

And thats only part of the backlash. Elsewhere, conservatives have made inroads in swing districts by stoking the Critical Race Theory panic, which is an attack on history and the teaching of it. Republican lawmakers have also sought to clamp down on peaceful protests. According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, since 2017, 45 states have considered 245 bills that would restrict the right to peaceful assembly. Thirty-six of those bills passed. Some of them would protect drivers who hit protesters with their cars on public streets.

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Opinion | Barack Obama: What Trayvon Martin Taught Us, 10 Years Later - The New York Times

Before I get to the heart of todays newsletter, I want to share three things Im watching in Russias war on Ukraine:

First, while most of the world has focused (understandably) on the fights for Kyiv and Kharkiv in northern Ukraine, Russia has been most successful in the south. It has reportedly captured the city of Kherson, and its continued success could mean that Russians might be able to attack Ukrainian forces holding the line in the Donbas region from the rear. Will Ukrainian forces retreat if faced with this crisis? Or will they stay and fight?

Second, in my Atlantic piece on Tuesday, I indicated that the Russian military was likely to turn increasingly to raw firepower and indiscriminate attacks to grind down Ukrainian opposition. Sadly, were seeing the signs of escalation, including reported attacks hitting hospitals, schools, and critical infrastructure in the south and the east. If Russia achieves any tangible battlefield gains with these tactics, expect them to proliferate across the battlefield.

Third, Im frankly stunned at the sheer scale of the international economic sanctions against Russia. I did not expect the West to unite so swiftly and decisively. Now, heres my question: Do the sanctions rally the Russian people against Vladimir Putin, or is there a chance they rally the Russian people against the West? We hope that Russians turn against Putin, but we shouldnt assume they will, and if history teaches us anything, its that the Russian nation will endure and persevere through immense suffering when it is under attack.

Now on to the main subjectJoe Bidens potentially permanent political weakness.

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What Obama and Trump Had That Biden Doesn't - The Atlantic

Since he was sworn in as Russia's leader in 2000, Vladimir Putin has dealt with five U.S. presidents to varying degrees of diplomacy.

The question of how the U.S. deals with one of its oldest adversaries has once again risen after Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine, with President Joe Biden facing a next major foreign policy test on how he handles the crisis.

Many conservatives have suggested that Biden is more to blame than Putin launching an attack on the neighboring country and that such a military operation would have never occurred under Donald Trump's watch.

Below, Newsweek looks back at how Biden and the previous presidents over the past 22 years interacted with Putin.

Biden and Putin had their first face-to-face meeting in June 2021 at a summit in Geneva.

Biden announced beforehand that he was keen to use the summit to repair the strained relationship between the U.S and Russia following years of allegations the country had interfered in the 2016 election.

Photos from the day appear to show Biden willing to maintain a decent relationship with Putin and Russia, with both presidents seen smiling as they shook hands at the summit held at the La Grange Villa near Lake Geneva.

"The tone of the entire meeting was good, positive," Biden said following the meeting: "The bottom line is, I told President Putin that we need to have some basic rules of the road that we can all abide by."

The friendly tone arrived just months after Biden Biden told ABC News the Russian president would "pay the price" for allegedly interfering in the 2020 election and referred to Putin as a "killer."

Trump and Putin frequently met during his time in the White House, although details about what the pair spoke about were often not disclosed.

One of their most famous meeting was in the Finish capital of Helsinki, where Trump dismissed suggestions that Russia colluded to tip the results of the 2016 election in his favor.

Trump infamously told the press conference that he did not "see any reason why it would be" Russia which is alleged to have interfered in the 2016 election, although Trump later claimed he misspoke and instead meant to say "wouldn't."

Trump, who seemingly never wanted to criticize Putin, made a similar statement when the two met again on November 11, 2017, at a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Da Nang, Vietnam.

"Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that,'" Trump said. "And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it. I think he is very insulted by it."

The pair first met during a G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2017, although they had communicated with each via telephone and telegraph before this.

Throughout his presidency, Trump considered Putin a key ally and still praises him to this day.

One president who did not shy away from his criticism of Putin was Barack Obama.

In August 2013, Obama canceled a planned meeting with Putin at the U.S.-Russia summit after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden fled to Russian seeking asylum after leaking thousands of classified documents.

The New York Timesreported it was the first time in decades that a U.S. president had canceled such a meeting, and that the relationship between the two former cold war adversaries was once again approaching near irreparable.

The pair continued to clash down the years. Obama opposed Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, as well as Putin's backing of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's regime amid the country's war.

The pair once again met to discuss foreign policy a few years later, with the relationship still appearing to be standoffish.

One of the most famous images during Obama's time in office arrived at the G20 Leaders Summit in Hangzhou, China, as the U.S. president stared down his Russian counterpart in September 2016.

The frosty reception arrived as the pair discussed a potential ceasefire in Syria. However, Obama later said that "gaps of trust" prevented reaching an agreement and that the 90-minute discussion between the pair was "candid, blunt, businesslike."

The GOP president famously said after his first meeting in Slovenia in 2001 with Putin that he looked him in the eye to "get a sense of his soul".

"He's a man deeply committed to his country," Bush added.

However, the relationship soured down the years, including telling former British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he lost his cool during a meeting with Putin and his interpreter made me "so mad that I nearly reached over the table and slapped the hell out of the guy."

Clinton was in the White House when Putin became Russia's president for the first time, but previously knew him from his stint as Russia prime minister.

Clinton, who famously had a friendly rapport with Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin, met with Putin for the first time in Moscow on June 3, 2000. An official told The New York Times that the meeting, in which they discussed a range of issues such as the American-Russian nuclear relationship, was businesslike,'' ''congenial'' and ''easygoing.''

"Remember that the two presidents do know each other, and that was quite apparent from the beginning," the official added.

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How Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Barack Obama Interacted With PutinIn Photos - Newsweek