Senate Republicans plan a last-ditch effort to lower costs ahead of midterms

By Sarah Ferris, Alison Main, Ted Barrett, CNN

(CNN) — Inside the Senate GOP’s campaign headquarters on Wednesday, dozens of Republicans gathered for a strategy session during what was expected to be their final days in Washington before the November midterms.

Then Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio – one of the most endangered Republicans in the country – made an urgent appeal to his colleagues. He told them to stay in town, demanding they “do something real and tangible on affordability,” according to a person in the room. Among those who forcefully agreed were Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is also in one of the most competitive Senate races and has made repeated pleas of her own in recent meetings, according to a person familiar with the GOP’s internal deliberations.

Soon afterward, GOP leaders agreed: The Senate would return to Washington next week to take up a bill aimed at protecting Americans from electricity price hikes amid a data center boom.

That push is a last-ditch attempt to arm Republicans with a stronger message on the economy heading into some of its toughest political headwinds in at least a decade. With fewer than 40 days until the midterms, Republicans privately worry that their majority is at risk as gas and grocery prices spike, according to multiple people familiar with internal deliberations. They’ve seen their own voters’ confidence in the party erode, as both the war and the economy have dragged down Republicans’ campaigns from Alaska to Maine as well as Iowa, Ohio and Kansas.

But the effort appears likely to fail – it is currently expected to be blocked by Democrats, who argue the bill is not adequate.

In Washington, frustrations have been mounting among many Senate Republicans who feel their party has done little to jolt the economy since their major tax cuts package last year. And some – like Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, a red-state senator who been surprisingly critical of his own party as of late – are increasingly speaking out.

This week, Kennedy railed against his own leadership for prioritizing a bill that imposes new rules on college athletics, while failing to put economic issues front and center.

“I have been chasing my friend, Senator Thune, like he stole Thanksgiving, since we passed the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ to do more on cost of living because we haven’t done a damn thing. And it’s biting us in the a** right now,” Kennedy told reporters Thursday.

Everyday Americans, he said, are “not worried about whether the football coaches are happy… they’re worried about cost of living.”

Next week, the Senate is expected to continue work on the college sports bill, culminating in a final vote. It is also expected to take up a bill that curbs lawmakers from buying stocks that includes provisions on voter ID, a measure that does not deal with affordability concerns.

And critics of Husted’s data center bill say the measure does little to shield against rate hikes. The bill creates a federal standard that requires data center operators to cover the costs of upgrades to energy infrastructure needed to support their work. But it only requires state public utility commissions, which generally regulate the utility rates in their states, to “consider” adopting that standard.

The bill overwhelmingly passed the House last week. But when Republicans then tried to fast-track the measure in the Senate, Democrats blocked the bill from consideration, arguing it does not do enough.

Privately, Senate Republicans believe they can still keep their majority, especially with GOP super PACs dumping presidential-level spending into their races – but acknowledge there are a half-dozen races that are tight enough to go either way, with affordability and the war as voters’ main concerns.

Some Republicans, like Sen. Josh Hawley, are willing to consider a kitchen-sink approach to lowering prices, from suspending the federal gas tax to banning diesel exports – but time is quickly running out for the Senate with just one more week in Washington. And the House has already left to return to the campaign trail.

“The best use of time right now would be figuring out maybe how to suspend the federal gas tax so that we can get prices down, how to cap the price of insulin so that we can get medical prices down, trying to do everything we can to lower every piece of cost of living that we possibly can before this Congress leaves. I mean, that to me seems awfully urgent to voters,” Hawley said on Wednesday, adding that he’s also open to a diesel export ban, which President Donald Trump has expressed interest in.

“We need to vote on things that will actually help real people. And I’m concerned that we’re not doing that,” he said. “I don’t know how you can explain that to voters in November. I really don’t.”

Not everyone in the party even agrees on what action to take to address affordability. Senate Republicans are split on that diesel export ban – which some experts warn could cause further chaos in the energy market – and GOP leaders are skeptical that there is a simple legislative solution to the price hikes consumers are facing.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune balked when asked if the Senate should pass something to help lower gas prices, saying that most of the ideas floating around won’t have much of an impact unless oil flows again through the Strait of Hormuz.

“I think there have been some ideas out there, most of which I don’t think are going to do much to impact gas prices. Again, the best way to get gas prices in a better spot is to get things opened up and get the free flow of global commerce, which right now in the strait isn’t the case,” he said.

The story headline has been updated.

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