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Fox News contributor Karl Rove offered midterm campaign advice to Republicans, Thursday, reacting on "Americas Newsroom" to a new Fox News Poll showing a majority of voters believe the Biden administration is incompetent.

CHUCK SCHUMER SAYS NANCY PELOSI IS IN TROUBLE, DECLARES DEMOCRATS WILL LOSE HOUSE: REPORT

KARL ROVE: They're approaching one out of every three Americans [who] thinks [Biden's] competent and nearly two out of three don't. So this is why if the election is a referendum on Joe Biden, the Democrats are in trouble. If it's about other things, it helps them.

The Democrats really only have two things: one is the abortion issue. And second of all, the hope that something happens, that events intrude, and that the election is more about something other than Joe Biden. If it's about Joe Biden, this is an opportunity for people to send a message that you better do better, and we want to check and balance you. But that's what the Republicans have got to fight to make their issue all about. And anything that interferes with that isn't helpful to the Republicans.

This article was written by Fox News staff.

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Karl Rove: Democrats are in trouble if Republicans make the midterms a referendum on Biden - Fox News

Republican candidate for governor Christine Drazan on Wednesday disclosed that her campaign received another $1 million from the Republican Governors Association, bringing the total spent directly by the national group to nearly $2.6 million.

A Republican has not occupied the states highest office since 1987. But party leaders are optimistic about their chances of retaking the governors mansion this year because of the large portion of Oregon voters who believe the state is headed in the wrong direction and the potential for well-funded unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson to draw votes from the Democrat, former House speaker Tina Kotek. Johnson is a former center-right Democratic state lawmaker who served since 2001.

Johnsons presence in the race and her retention of a key Oregon Republican fundraiser has cut into Drazans ability to stack up donations from major in-state GOP donors. For example, billionaire Nike co-founder Phil Knight has donated $1.75 million to Johnsons campaign, helping to bring Johnsons total fundraising to $11.1 million as of August 14, the most recent information reported by her campaign.

Drazan, who is reporting her fundraising and spending within hours or days of the transactions, has raised $9.1 million since January 2021. Drazan is the former leader of Oregons House Republican caucus.

Kotek, who is reporting her campaign transactions within a week, reported raising $8.9 million as of Sept. 7.

Hillary Borrud

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National Republicans drop another $1 million on race for Oregon governor - OregonLive

With the announcement on Tuesday that consumer-price inflation had been higher than expected in August, the recent string of positive economic news for Joe Biden and the Democrats came to an end. The headline inflation rate declined from 8.5 per cent in July to 8.3 per cent last month, the latest Labor Department report shows, but the core rate, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, increased from 5.9 per cent to 6.3 per cent as the cost of rent, new cars, and other items rose in what the report called a broad-based increase. Economists and the Federal Reserve monitor the core rate closely, because they believe it gives an accurate picture of underlying trends. The central question now is whether the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, and his colleagues will raise interest rates more aggressively to temper inflationa step that could inadvertently tip the economy into a recession.

The inflation report prompted a big sell-off on Wall Street: stocks suffered their biggest drop in more than two years. However, amidst renewed criticism of the Biden Administration from Republican leaders, the Consumer Price Index (C.P.I.) report needs to be put into perspective. Despite some concerning features, it did confirm that over-all inflation pressures are gradually easing, although not as rapidly as many consumers would like to see. In June, the headline rate was 9.1 per cent, so in two months it has declined by 0.8 percentage points. And, even though the core rate rose, there are reasons to believe it will fall considerably in the coming months. Big picture, the core C.P.I. rate is still slowly coming down, Ian Shepherdson, a chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, told me. I have no doubt it is going to come down considerably over the next six months.

As Biden was quick to point out, gas prices dropped sharply over the summer. Where prices go from here depends on what happens in the global oil market, which is difficult to predict. But the price of crude oil fell again on Tuesday, and, if this continues, prices at the pump will keep trending down. How far? Barring hurricanes or unexpected outages... the national average could decline to $3.49, then $3.25, Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, a tech company that helps people find cheap gas, told Yahoo finance. And its not impossible that we could be on the road to a $2.99 national average by the end of the year.

Cheaper gas is good news for motorists, obviously, but it also augurs well for anyone who buys food, which means practically everyone. Over the past twelve months, according to the August report, the cost of food eaten in or out of the home has risen by 11.4 per cent, the biggest annual increase since May, 1979. One of the things that propelled food prices upward was sharply higher transportation costs. With lower fuel prices, these costs are now falling, which should eventually lead to lower food prices. If it doesnt, someone somewhere is profiteering. The same goes for airfares, which dropped 4.6 per cent last month. With the cost of jet fuel having declined sharply during the summer, fares for autumn should fall a good deal further.

Then there is the global supply-chain crisis, which is finally starting to ease. This is particularly evident in the auto industry. The last couple of years has seen a severe shortage of new vehicles, which has led to dramatic increases in the prices of used cars. More recently, however, auction prices for used cars have fallen sharplyby four per cent in August alone, according to one industry index. As yet, those lower auction prices havent led to a big drop in the prices that auto dealers charge for used vehicles. This should happen soon. And as used cars get considerably cheaper, that should constrain the ability of dealers to raise the prices of new ones. With vehicles accounting for about eleven per cent of the C.P.I., these developments are far from trivial.

Another factor to consider is the role that rents, which make up almost a third of the C.P.I.i.e., a huge part of itare playing in keeping inflation high. In the past twelve months, according to the August report, rents for primary residences have risen by 6.7 per cent. (This figure includes rents paid by people on longer-term leases, so it takes into account the much bigger hikes for new leases seen in some places, such as parts of New York City.)

Higher rents reflect multiple factors, including strong demand, a shortage of available rentals, and soaring real-estate prices, which have priced out some would-be buyers and turned them into renters. As the Fed has increased the federal-funds rate recently, mortgage rates have gone up sharply as well. As a result, home sales have slowed, and prices are now falling in many parts of the country. If they continue to drop, and they likely will, buying will become a more attractive option, which will reduce the demand for rentals. That, in turn, should put downward pressure on rents. Unfortunately, this could take a while. While we anticipate housing cost pressures to ease in the coming months on the back of a sharp pullback in housing demand, cooler price momentum wont be evident for a few more months, Gregory Daco, a chief economist at EY-Parthenon, wrote in a commentary on the inflation report.

On the basis of these and other factors, including a compression of profit margins as pandemic-related restrictions on supply continue to ease, Shepherdson is predicting that by March of next year the core inflation rate will have dropped from 6.3 to 4.8 per cent. He also cited Wednesdays release of the Producer Price Index for August, a separate report, which showed that prices at the wholesale level fell slightly over the month, and increased by 8.7 per cent on an annual basis, the smallest increase in a year. It unambiguously showed inflation coming down across both the goods and services sectors, he noted.

In their eagerness to shift the focus of the midterms from Donald Trump and abortion rights to inflation and the cost of living, Republicans are skating over any encouraging economic developments, of course. The danger is that with just one monthly inflation report left before voting dayit will be released on October 13ththeir messaging could resonate. Although Bidens approval ratings have rebounded somewhat in recent weeks, a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll indicates that fifty-four per cent of Americans still believe that their personal finances are getting worse. (Forty-six per cent of respondents said that their situation is improving or unchanged.)

With prices still rising faster than wages, these poll findings arent surprising. But with the over-all inflation rate declining, and with wage pressures and inflation expectations contained, there are still reasons for optimism and no justification for the Fed to panic. When Powell and his colleagues meet next week, the Fed chief should make this clear and resist calls for more drastic increases in interest rates. Getting inflation down will take some time, but the process is already ongoing.

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The Inflation Picture Isnt as Negative as Republicans and the Markets Are Saying - The New Yorker

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The post-Labor Day weekend sprint to the November midterms is officially on. The general election matchups are set and the contours of the election have taken shape. With less than two months to go, one thing is remarkably clear: while former President Donald Trump is not on the ballot, his candidates and policies certainly are.

Not in recent history have we had a president, both as the incumbent and out of office, so willing to engage high-risk, low-reward, competitive political primaries.

As he faces an uncertain future, one would expect that the only former president to have his home raided by the FBI would be trying to win friends and influence enemies. Instead, he has decided to declare war against his own appointees such as FBI Director Chris Wray, former Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and otherseven the architect of his legislative wins and three successful Supreme Court appointments, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Former President Donald Trump (James Devaney/GC Images/File)

Meanwhile, his decision to weigh-in on primary battles certainly tipped the scales among the MAGA base. But among centrist and independent voters, who actually decide general elections, his endorsement in battleground state races seems to be dragging many of them down with precious few weeks left in the midterm cycle.

DEMOCRATS OUTPACING REPUBLICANS BY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ABSENTEE BALLOT REQUESTS IN KEY MIDTERM STATE

In November, the whole ballgame is independent voters, a group Trump has struggled with in the past. In 2020, Trump lost these voters by 9 points. Many GOP nominees tripped over themselves to secure Trumps endorsement -- clearly a wise strategy for primary elections.However, you can bet Democrats will effectively tie those challengers to the unpopular former president.

2022 was supposed to be the year the GOP would easily win back control from a 50-50 senate but, with just two months to go, Republican prospects are dimming for the Party shaped in Donald Trumps image.

Many forget that Republicans lost two Senate seats in the 2016 election even though Donald Trump swept surprisingly into office. In 2018, Republicans netted two seats, but lost seats in the key swing states of Arizona and Nevada (winning back seats in solid-red Montana, Indiana, Missouri and trending-red Florida). And with Trump on the ballot in 2020, Democrats won the presidency and took back the Senate, winning Arizona, Colorado, and two seats in Georgia. The only upper-chamber seat to flip to Republicans that year: ruby-red Alabama.

WHAT'S AT STAKE FOR REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS IN MIDTERMS NOW THAT PRIMARY ELECTION SEASON IS OVER

2022 was supposed to be the year the GOP would easily win back control from a 50-50 Senate but, with just two months to go, Republican prospects are dimming for the party shaped in Donald Trumps image.

His primary-endorsed Senate candidates in Arizona, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are vastly underperforming their Democratic rivals in both polling and fundraising. In fact, many of these races would not even be competitive for my party had Trump not given his endorsement.

That is not to say that all Trump-endorsed candidates will fail this November. The former president often makes it a habit of endorsing candidates who are already going to win in the fall, and then claims credit for their success. Candidates like state Rep. Russell Fry in South Carolina, who defeated incumbent Rep. Tom Rice in a Republican primary, and Harriett Hageman, who beat Rep. Liz Cheney in Wyoming, will certainly be joining the 118th Congress.

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Ultimately, even as history tells us that the party in the White House should lose seats this year, candidates matter. Democrats like Rep. Tim Ryan in Ohio and Sens. Rafael Warnock and Mark Kelly are running much ahead of their Republican rivals because they are better candidates who know their states far better.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in Washington May 10, 2022. (Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images)

Depending on Novembers results, Republicans will have to face a reckoning as a party: will they continue to pledge fealty to Donald Trump and support his hand-picked candidates or will they realize that independent voters matter and that politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. The latter has worked quite well for Republican Govs. Asa Hutchinson, Brian Kemp, Phil Scott, Larry Hogan and Glenn Youngkin. Its also worked for Sens. Susan Collins and Mitt Romney.

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They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. 2022 will test the veracity of that theory.

There is no question that former President Donald Trump is a GOP primary kingmaker but come November when that supposed Red Wave hits a solid blue wall of Democrats and Independents, he may very well end up this elections spoiler for the Republicans.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM KEVIN WALLING

Kevin Walling is a Democratic campaign strategist, former Biden 2020 campaign surrogate, vice president at HGCreative. Follow him on Twitter @KevinPWalling.

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Republicans think Trump will be a midterm kingmaker. Democrats like me think he may be a spoiler - Fox News

There are few things in politics as dangerous as a sure thing.

Maybe thats because when a political party believes victory is certain, the kooks and grifters come out in droves to profit off it generally eroding whatever advantage that party might have had to begin with in the process.

And so, with the possibility of a red wave in 2022 widely considered to be a sure thing, it really shouldnt have been surprising that some of Team Reds candidates are almost comically damaging to Republican prospects.

Given Nevadas unique position in national politics, its only fitting that many of the GOPs unforced errors would take place here especially because much of the Republican consulting class in this state appears to be more interested in the grift than they are in propelling credible and qualified candidates to victory.

A recent case in point would be Michele Fiores inexplicable decision to brag even campaign on the fact that a disgraced former councilman-turned-lobbyist, Ricki Barlow, endorsed her campaign for treasurer.

Certainly, most campaign consultants would jump at the chance to have an endorsement from someone in the opposing party a phenomenon some Democrats have enjoyed several times this election cycle. Nonetheless, most competent campaigns would also give at least a modicum of consideration to the reputation of the person giving the endorsement before bragging about it to potential voters.

The grifters who comprise certain factions within the Republican Party, however, apparently dont consider such nuanced considerations to be important. And so, the woman who has, herself, been investigated for shady financial practices is publicly promoting the endorsement of a disgraced colleague.

Fiores trademarked poor judgment, however, is not an isolated incident.

Sigal Chattah, the Republican running for attorney general, has demonstrated a similar level of incompetent politicking in her race. Her comments, demeanor and political views aside, her recent lawsuit to remove the (ineligible) Libertarian candidate from the ballot had the fingerprints of rank political amateurs all over it.

One can presume her attempt to boot the Libertarian candidate from the ballot stems from a belief that he would siphon votes from the Republican ticket on election day therefore further frustrating what is already turning out to be a challenging race for her. Since the Libertarian has already sought to withdraw his candidacy, it makes sense Chattah would seek to remove the spoiler-candidates name from the ballot.

However, her lawsuit was filed months later than it should have been if there was ever going to be any hope of removing his name and after the last legal day for name changes to be made to the ballot. Chattahs team effectively waited until ballots were ready to roll off the printers and get stuffed into envelopes leaving Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, the judicial branch, or even the lowly-paid employee responsible for hitting print on the big machine at the ballot factory, incapable of actually doing anything about it.

It should come as no surprise that Chattahs lawyer for this matter was Joey Gilbert the very same man who threw a litigious temper-tantrum after his entirely predictable primary loss to Republican Sheriff Joe Lombardo. If the last headline-grabbing lawsuit he was a part of was any indication of future performance, reasonable observers should have known this one wouldnt pan out well for team red.

And sure enough, a district court judge ruled last week that the ineligible Libertarian candidates name will, indeed, remain on the ballot.

Beyond these specific examples, theres also a growing (and ill-advised) belief among many Republican candidates that being actively hostile toward the news media is, somehow, a winning campaign strategy.

Adam Laxalt, for example, has effectively built a wall around his campaign to keep out reporters who might ask occasionally difficult questions. So far, Laxalt has even refused to agree to a debate with his Democratic opponent putting him out of step with other high-profile Republicans, such as Joe Lombardo, who have already agreed to the pretty standard practice of public debates in major political contests.

Of course, to be fair, Laxalts apparent inaccessibility isnt a uniquely Republican trait. For example, his opponent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto has refused to grant The Nevada Independent the kind of long-form interview that Republicans Mark Amodei and Joe Lombardo have already provided.

But why would she? Why risk being asked a handful of difficult questions when Laxalt is willfully limiting his own ability to talk to voters through the media? In a very tangible way, Laxalts resistance to engaging with reporters has given Cortez Masto the freedom to be highly selective about when (or if) she decides to engage with objective news outlets and that freedom is a pretty welcomed gift to any incumbent trying to defend their office.

By many measures, 2022 should have been a very successful election year for the GOP with economic challenges, midterm trends and a deeply unpopular Democratic president setting the stage for a red wave in November. However, that advantage effectively gave rise to a goldrush of amateurs, opportunists, and grifters seeking to profit quickly off such a sure thing.

And those are exactly the types of people capable of turning a predicted red wave into something more like a ripple.

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him at SchausCreative.com or on Twitter at @schausmichael.

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The 'red wave' was such a sure thing, of course Republicans are blowing it The Nevada Independent - The Nevada Independent