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Christine Waugh-Fleischmann, an art teacher who said she spends up to $200 a week on gas driving to see her grandchildren, is a Democratic voter in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. One of the most competitive seats in the country, it is currently held by Republican Representative Tom Barrett and she believes the seat can be flipped, partly due to the high price of gas. 

“I do see a lot of people in my conservative neighborhood here who are very upset,” she told Reuters. “It’s gas. It’s grocery prices, it’s health care costs.”

The arithmetic of her frustration is easy to trace. After war broke out with Iran in late February, the average price of gas in Michigan jumped roughly 32 percent in three weeks, from $2.99 to $3.95 a gallon. Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a formal energy emergency to let southeast Michigan stations sell cheaper summer-blend fuel, citing both the war and tariffs. Prices kept climbing anyway — including a 90-cent spike in a single week, among the sharpest in any midterm battleground — briefly topping $4 before coming down in recent months.

Read Next Why are so many Democrats going quiet on climate change? Kate Yoder

Crisis, emergency orders, persistent pain heading into the fall: That is the narrative spine of Michigan’s midterms, and both parties know it.

A ground shift

Republicans spent years circling Michigan as their best 2026 pickup opportunity. Now doubts are creeping in. A Democrat won a special state Senate election in May by nearly 20 points in a district Kamala Harris carried by less than one, and President Donald Trump’s economic approval fell even among Republicans, from 74 percent to 62 percent, between March and April.

In a Climate Power survey of 600 likely Michigan voters conducted in mid-June, 42 percent of those polled, including 44 percent of independents, said they would be less likely to vote for a congressional candidate who supports Trump’s energy policies, as opposed to 21 percent who said they’d be more likely. And 58 percent said Trump has made energy prices more expensive, while 63 percent rejected his claim that high gas prices are a “small price to pay” for the war in Iran. Since the war began, 45 percent said they had grown more supportive of diversifying America’s energy sources, including solar and wind.

“Trump’s energy agenda is costing Michigan families at the pump and on their power bills — and voters know it,” said Tom Lenard, Climate Power’s Michigan director, warning that candidates who back it “do so at their own political peril.”

Not every voter in Barrett’s district sees it that way. Alexander Melton, a 38-year-old heating and air conditioning technician, told Reuters that he still backs the Republican congressman. “We don’t dictate the price of gas,” he said.

Affordability versus the ‘Green New Scam’

In the Democratic Senate primary, which takes place August 4, Haley Stevens, Mallory McMorrow, and Abdul El-Sayed have all tied affordability messaging to clean energy — McMorrow, before exiting the race, called it “a freedom issue, it’s a cost issue” and argued that Democrats are “on the precipice” of lowering bills. Republican Mike Rogers, who’s running for a U.S. Senate seat for the second time, countered that the push for renewables is itself what is driving up Michigan’s energy costs.

Read Next The Trump EPA ended the ‘green new scam.’ A year later, communities are still paying the price.  Sophie Hurwitz

Underneath the messaging war sits real economic damage. Michigan lost $4.1 billion in planned clean manufacturing investment and roughly 11,700 jobs after the Trump-era rollbacks, while $540 million in climate grants were canceled or delayed — including $156 million meant to help low-income residents install solar panels. And the administration ordered Consumers Energy to keep the J.H. Campbell coal plant running past its planned retirement, a move the state’s attorney general and other critics said will cost ratepayers more than transitioning away from it.

The fallout has cut across party lines. In March of last year, Representative John James of Shelby Township and at least seven other House Republicans called on their colleagues to preserve the Biden-era clean energy tax credits. “We must not neglect the sector-wide energy tax provisions that manufacturers and job creators rely on in my district,” James said.

Divided government, divided stakes

The starkest fight is in Lansing. Michigan’s 2023 Clean Energy and Jobs Act requires 100 percent renewable electricity by 2040, but the November elections could determine the law’s future. House Republicans last month passed “Project Lighthouse,” a package that would repeal the clean energy mandates; its sponsor, state Representative Pauline Wendzel, called the 2023 requirements “arbitrary” and said they help large investor-owned utilities instead of everyday ratepayers. The legislation is likely dead in the Democratic-held Senate — for now. But DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, the state’s largest utilities, will submit integrated resource plans in 2026 for the first time under the new law, meaning the election will set the ground rules just as they take effect.

Ben Poulson, state government affairs director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, argued the repeal legislation reaches further than its sponsors let on. “It repeals a lot of programs that we have been using to lower energy waste and lessens the accountability that we have on utility companies here in the state,” he told Planet Detroit.

Denise Keele, executive director of the Michigan Climate Action Network, said that climate change is showing up on the campaign trail under a different name. “We’re seeing it show up as energy affordability,” she said, noting that Michiganders pay some of the highest residential electricity and gas rates in the country. House Republicans, she said, “are essentially blaming clean and renewable energy as [to] why those energy prices are going up” — even though renewables make up only about 11 percent of the state’s mix and wind and solar are cheaper and faster to build. Her frustration cuts both ways: Not enough Democrats, she argued, are running on renewable energy’s success, a reticence she likened to what acclaimed environmental activist and journalist Bill McKibben calls “climate hushing.” The honest case — that prices will rise less with renewables than with fossil fuels — “is apparently too hard to message.”

Data centers and utility money

The hottest flashpoint may be data centers, which have driven up utility rates while promising jobs — and split traditional Democratic constituencies. Gubernatorial frontrunner Jocelyn Benson, endorsed by the Michigan League of Conservation Voters at a Grand Rapids riverfront event, has pledged enforceable guardrails on data centers and utilities and a moratorium on companies that violate environmental standards. Her platform centers on expanding clean energy to lower utility bills, replacing aging water infrastructure and reinstating polluter pay laws. 

Read Next America’s data center backlash is bipartisan — can it stay that way? Zoya Teirstein & Kate Yoder

But some unions back the data center projects. “We respectfully urge policymakers to support a responsible path forward for data center development that protects communities, grows the tax base, strengthens our workforce and keeps Michigan competitive for decades to come,” Douglas W. Stockwell, business manager and general vice president of Operating Engineers 324, testified at a hearing in Michigan’s House of Representatives.

Voter anger at the utilities is reshaping the money race, too. More than 150 Michigan politicians from both parties have pledged to reject campaign funding from Consumers Energy and DTE, according to the Michigan League of Conservation Voters — even as Consumers Energy requested another rate hike for its electricity customers this week. 

“This is disgusting what’s happening and it’s exploitative, it’s extractive, it’s unethical,” said Jerry Norris, a Lansing community activist who said he is following the money this cycle. “It might not own everybody when they accept money like that, but it influences it, and it creates an obligation and it creates a debt,” he told WILX10.

For voters like Alexis Jones of Lansing, the debate comes down to a number on an envelope. His utility bill is “almost $400,” he said. 

“It’s terrible. And not only do I have to look out for me, but I’ve got little munchkins, grandkids, to look after. And things are out of control.”

Copyright 2026 Capital & Main

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In Michigan, the price of energy is on the ballot and both parties know it on Jul 25, 2026.

permainan bertema slot semakin menarik perhatian berkat inovasi fitur dan pengalaman bermain yang terus berkembang. Salah satu judul yang kerap menjadi perbincangan adalah Bonanza Gold, sebuah permainan yang dikenal karena menghadirkan tampilan visual menarik, mekanisme permainan dinamis, serta potensi fitur bonus yang membuat banyak pemain penasaran. Tidak sedikit pengguna yang mencari informasi mengenai peluang memperoleh hasil optimal meskipun memulai permainan dengan nominal deposit yang relatif kecil.

Fenomena tersebut menunjukkan perubahan pola perilaku pemain. Kini, banyak pengguna lebih mengutamakan pengelolaan dana secara bijak dibandingkan melakukan deposit dalam jumlah besar. Pendekatan ini dinilai lebih aman karena memberikan kesempatan untuk menikmati permainan lebih lama sekaligus mengurangi risiko pengeluaran yang berlebihan. Dengan strategi pengelolaan saldo yang tepat, pemain dapat memanfaatkan setiap putaran secara lebih efektif tanpa harus terburu-buru mengejar hasil instan.

Bonanza Gold sendiri dikenal memiliki sejumlah fitur yang menjadi daya tarik utama. Mekanisme simbol yang saling terhubung, peluang hadirnya putaran bonus, hingga fitur pengganda kemenangan menjadi elemen yang sering dibahas dalam berbagai komunitas permainan digital. Meskipun demikian, penting dipahami bahwa seluruh hasil permainan tetap ditentukan oleh sistem acak atau Random Number Generator (RNG). Teknologi ini dirancang untuk memastikan setiap putaran berlangsung independen sehingga tidak ada pola pasti yang dapat menjamin kemenangan.

Dari sudut pandang pengalaman pemain, deposit kecil bukan berarti membatasi peluang untuk menikmati seluruh fitur yang tersedia. Sebaliknya, nominal awal yang terjangkau dapat menjadi sarana untuk memahami karakter permainan, mengenali mekanisme bonus, serta menentukan ritme bermain yang sesuai. Banyak pemain berpengalaman menyarankan agar pengguna baru memanfaatkan sesi awal untuk mempelajari volatilitas permainan sebelum meningkatkan nilai taruhan sesuai kemampuan finansial masing-masing.

Pendekatan tersebut sejalan dengan prinsip permainan yang bertanggung jawab. Mengelola anggaran, menetapkan batas waktu bermain, serta menghindari keputusan emosional merupakan langkah yang sering direkomendasikan oleh berbagai pakar industri hiburan digital. Dengan demikian, pengalaman bermain tidak hanya berfokus pada hasil akhir, tetapi juga memberikan hiburan yang tetap nyaman dan terkendali.

Dalam perspektif industri, popularitas Bonanza Gold juga didorong oleh meningkatnya kualitas teknologi yang digunakan pengembang permainan modern. Optimalisasi grafis, kompatibilitas pada berbagai perangkat, hingga sistem keamanan yang semakin baik membuat akses terhadap permainan menjadi lebih praktis. Faktor-faktor tersebut turut meningkatkan kepercayaan pengguna terhadap platform yang menyediakan layanan permainan digital secara profesional.

Aspek transparansi juga menjadi perhatian penting. Platform yang memiliki reputasi baik umumnya memberikan informasi yang jelas mengenai mekanisme permainan, ketentuan bonus, hingga dukungan layanan pelanggan. Dengan memilih platform yang terpercaya, pemain dapat menikmati pengalaman yang lebih aman sekaligus meminimalkan risiko yang tidak diinginkan.

Meski istilah “deposit kecil menang besar” sering muncul dalam berbagai pembahasan, penting untuk memahaminya sebagai ungkapan yang menggambarkan potensi hasil, bukan sebuah kepastian. Tidak ada strategi maupun nominal deposit yang mampu menjamin kemenangan karena seluruh proses permainan tetap bergantung pada sistem acak yang telah diterapkan. Oleh sebab itu, ekspektasi yang realistis menjadi bagian penting dalam menjaga pengalaman bermain tetap positif.

Secara keseluruhan, Bonanza Gold menjadi salah satu permainan yang menarik perhatian berkat kombinasi fitur inovatif, tampilan visual berkualitas, dan peluang hadirnya berbagai bonus dalam permainan. Dengan menerapkan pengelolaan modal yang disiplin, memahami mekanisme permainan, serta memilih platform yang kredibel, pemain dapat memperoleh pengalaman hiburan digital yang lebih optimal. Pada akhirnya, keberhasilan dalam menikmati permainan tidak hanya diukur dari besarnya kemenangan, tetapi juga dari kemampuan mengelola risiko, mengambil keputusan secara bijak, dan menjadikan aktivitas bermain sebagai bentuk hiburan yang bertanggung jawab.

On Saturday, July 25, over 330 communities across the United States will hold vigils, protests, and demonstrations to demand justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastian Guerrero, and many more who have been killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Neighbors will gather to pay their respects, pray, mourn, and demand ICE OUT!

The national movement follows two recent, horrific killings by ICE agents. On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a beloved father and worker, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston, Texas, while driving a work van. On July 13, ICE agents killed 26-year-old Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, in front of his partner and toddler.

There have now been 53 deaths in ICE custody since Trump was inaugurated, 33 deaths in fiscal year 2026 alone. As the death toll grows, communities across the country are taking to the streets to protest and mourn together, demanding that the ICE agents involved in these killings, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and all related agencies under the Trump administration be held accountable. Given the pending confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General, this need for transparency, accountability and public pressure is particularly important now.

Find all events here.

Organizers and participants are calling for:

• Immediate Transparency: DHS must immediately release the key witnesses to Lorenzo’s death and halt their deportation proceedings so they can safely participate in any investigation and legal process.
• Full, Independent Investigations: Investigations must include full transparency and cooperation from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and all other law enforcement agencies. Accountability for any officer found to have committed misconduct or violated the law.
• ICE Out: All state and local leaders should stop using their resources to support federal immigration enforcement and stop all coordination with ICE. DHS must remove all ICE agents from the streets.
• Corporate Responsibility: Businesses and corporations must exercise their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to protect their employees, customers, and communities, and decline to cooperate with ICE, including by refusing access to private property, customer information, or other resources.

“We refuse to grieve quietly. We refuse to accept this terror and violence as inevitable”, said Crystal Cron, Executive Director, Presente! Maine. “Johan Sebastián should still be here with his wife and daughter — and instead, his name joins a growing list of people killed by an institution that treats our communities as disposable. This is bigger than one shooting, bigger than Biddeford, bigger than Maine. We will not stop fighting until there is justice for the Durán Guerrero family and a total dismantling of this lawless, criminal agency that took him from them.”

“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a husband, a father of three, and a small business owner who built his American dream with his own hands. Johan Sebastian Guerrero was killed in front of his partner and his toddler,” said Juan Proaño, Chief Executive Officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). “ICE has now taken the lives of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike, and if they can kill Lorenzo and Johan, they can kill anyone. On July 25, LULAC’s members and councils will stand vigil with neighbors in communities across this country to demand transparency, independent investigations, and accountability for every life taken.”

“We are all in danger from the brutality of ICE, and the killings of Lorenzo, Johan, Juan Hairo —and all those who have been killed by this rogue agency—prove that no one is safe,” said Erika Andiola, NDLON Political Director. “We must unite to defend ourselves and honor immigrant workers and day laborers, who endure the worst anti-immigrant hatred while building our communities and defending human rights. Today, we gather to mourn them and demand an end to ICE’s reign of terror.”

“A government-authorized paramilitary force is roaming our streets, terrorizing, abducting and murdering human beings,” said Robert Weissman, Co-President of Public Citizen. “This weekend, thousands of Americans at hundreds of events across the country will gather to mourn the shameful loss of life, demand accountability for perpetrators and insist on an end to the cruel and deliberate Trump administration policy choices that make these kinds of killings all but inevitable.”

“ICE kills people, separates families, and threatens community safety across the country – full stop. No one is safe when ICE is present – whether on the streets or in one of the agency’s more than 200 abuse-ridden detention facilities,” said Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network. “People are dying in ICE detention at a record-breaking rate, ICE agents are tearing families apart and shooting people on the streets, making people less safe, and causing chaos wherever they go — whether in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Biddeford, or beyond. No more abuse and death at the hands of ICE and no more ICE funding while people lose health care, struggle to pay rent and kids go hungry. We demand an end to the ICE age.”

“The deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastián Guerrero, and now Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran are not isolated tragedies; they are the direct result of the administration’s drastic and dangerous expansion of immigration enforcement, fueled by the $270 billion in funding to ICE and CBP. These hundreds of billions to terrorize communities are financed by historic cuts to health care, and the American public is rightly outraged by these killings and cruelty,” said Todd Schulte, President of FWD.us. “We will continue to fight against this ICE violence that is tearing families apart, against the expansion of enforcement and for a more just and human approach to immigration.”

“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving to a job site with his crew. Johan Sebastian Guerrero was starting his day as a delivery driver, with his wife and toddler beside him. They were doing what millions of immigrants do every day. And ICE agents gunned them down; for working. This is not immigration enforcement. This is lethal state violence against people who are our neighbors, family members, and friends, and it has to stop. For over a year, Workers Circle activists have taken action week after week through our Freedom Vigils, bearing witness outside detention facilities like Alligator Alcatraz until we shut it down in June and refusing to let this cruelty happen in the dark across the nation. Lorenzo and Johan’s deaths are part of the same fight for human dignity and Constitutional rights, now out in the open for the whole country to see” said Noelle Damico, Director of Social Justice at The Workers Circle. “On July 25, we’re bringing that same determination and love to communities from Houston to Maine and everywhere in between, because we owe Lorenzo and Johan and their families more than grief — we owe them justice. We will not look away, and we will keep speaking out until we end ICE’s reign of terror in our communities once and for all.”

###

The July 25 Day of Action is being organized by volunteers, neighbors, families, and organizations nationwide, with support from the Disappeared in America project hosted by Public Citizen, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), The Workers Circle, Detention Watch Network, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). A core principle behind all Disappeared in America events is a commitment to nonviolent action.

As Marx said, capitalism simultaneously undermines the sources of all wealth—the soil and the worker

Source

On Thursday, Demand Progress released a new report that exposes how the financial services industry has plowed around $200 million into advocacy efforts that are centered on blocking passage of the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), a bipartisan reform that would introduce competition into the payment system.

• Read the Report

The report details how these efforts involve not only money spent on lobbying and campaign contributions, but aggressive and deceitful advertising and paid advocacy designed to convey the impression of grassroots support for the current system, which is enormously profitable for Visa, Mastercard and major banks that issue credit cards.

“For a combination of misleading claims and sheer financial firepower, Wall Street’s defense of credit cards really is something,” said Carter Dougherty, senior fellow for antimonopoly and finance at Demand Progress. “Visa, Mastercard and the big banks have money on their side but only vacant arguments, so this sort of campaign is the result.”

A glaring example of the industry’s astro-turfing is the Small Business Payments Alliance. The group, run by a New York public relations firm, spreads around videos of testimonials against reform from small businesses that have taken money from Visa and Mastercard. The industry has also engaged The Points Guy, a popular credit card website, in fighting change.

The report, entitled, “How Wall Street Money Misleads,” includes detailed evidence of how the credit card industry:

• Pumps money into political campaigns
• Spends heavily on lobbying in Washington and in states that have sought to pass incremental payment system reforms
• Uses advertising in select markets
• Bankrolls different groups and websites to convey widespread support for its position

The Credit Card Competition Act aims to introduce competition into the payment system by allowing merchants to route credit card transactions over networks other than Visa or Mastercard. In the Senate, Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) are sponsors. In the House, the sponsors are Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Lance Gooden (R-TX). The bill would apply provided the card was issued by a bank with more than $100 billion in assets, a threshold that covers the oligopoly of megabanks whose cards are used for most transactions. It enjoys the support from a wide array of consumer advocates, antimonopoly advocates and small businesses. A fact sheet on the CCCA can be found here.

CND and Fairford Action have called an emergency protest outside the main gate of RAF Fairford, to take place on Saturday, 25 July.

It follows the attack on Iran by a US B-1 bomber stationed at RAF Fairford this week and a statement from Iran’s foreign ministry which branded Britain as an ‘accomplice’ to the US’s illegal war. Iran now views British bases like RAF Fairford as legitimate targets.

This is the latest escalation in almost two weeks of the US’s bombardment of Iran, which has targeted bridges, energy supplies and other civilian infrastructure. In retaliation, Iran has targeted US bases in the Middle East, including Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar.

Rather than condemning the Trump administration for renewing the conflict - which has resulted in even greater casualties and is pushing the global economy even further into crisis - Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is continuing the policy of his predecessor Keir Starmer.

This support could now also be putting British lives in danger. It risks an even greater escalation in the Middle East and the involvement of the nuclear-armed alliance of NATO—something that Trump has been pushing for.

Instead, the British government needs to use its diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the situation. Central to this is withdrawing the use of British bases.

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:

“New Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, needs to end Trump's use of Fairford and Diego Garcia now. This is dragging Britain directly into Trump's illegal war on Iran. Public opposition to the use of British bases to commit war crimes overseas is growing*. Diplomatic pathways to achieve a peaceful resolution to Iran's nuclear programme have been shown to work. Trump's bombardment is only sabotaging this progress.

The government’s ongoing attempt to hide behind spurious arguments that Fairford is being used for ‘defensive’ operations cannot be justified. Actively assisting a country breaching international law is indefensible. Burnham needs to do the right thing. That means using diplomacy to end this devastating war and end its complicity in US war crimes.”

The American Federation of Government Employees is calling for the U.S. Senate to oppose President Trump's nominee for general counsel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, Charlton Allen, due to his history of racism, homophobia, and antisemitism.

In June, the news site NOTUS reported on Charlton Allen’s record of racist and bigoted conduct and rhetoric, both as an individual and through his role founding and serving as publisher of the Carolina Review while he was a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Under Allen’s leadership, the Carolina Review ran covers depicting Black people as monkeys and a Jewish student leader as the devil, among dozens of other instances of hate-filled articles and opinion pieces. During his confirmation hearing, Allen failed either to apologize or to denounce his record at the Carolina Review.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley called his record “disqualifying” when these outrageous examples of Allen’s bigotry were first reported. On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 7-5 to move the nomination to the full Senate for a vote.

In a letter sent today to all U.S. senators, Kelley urged lawmakers to oppose the nomination.

“The FLRA is a small but highly important agency for America's two million federal workers. According to its mission statement, the FLRA exists ‘to promote stable, constructive labor relations that contribute to a more effective and efficient government.’ To do that, it must fairly and impartially investigate unfair labor practices, adjudicate disputes about the duty to bargain, conduct elections, and handle the certification and decertification of federal unions,” Kelley wrote.

“The position of FLRA general counsel carries a five-year term and requires Senate confirmation. It should be filled by someone who commands trust from all sides, labor and management alike. Charlton Allen does not meet that threshold.”

National Nurses United announced today that RNs will be joining protests on Saturday, July 25 to demand justice for the murders of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Diamondback Energy's acquisition of Endeavor Energy Resources will create the region's third largest energy producer.

The impact of the energy industry on Texas' economy shattered records, but that performance is not guaranteed to continue

The Texas power grid operator will add nearly $119 million to its annual budget.

The EPA last year announced aerial surveillance of “super-emitters.”

The all-Republican court narrowly found that the nonprofit corporation qualifies for sovereign immunity.

The energy firm leader's $37.8M salary is 366 times median employee pay.

The measure is the first in a series of GOP proposals aimed at “unleashing American energy production.''

The U.S. Department of Energy granted permission for power plants to release more pollution than is normally allowed — if grid conditions worsen

Texans will be bailing out energy providers haurt by the winter storm for decades.

 The proposed offshore terminal is one of four projects intended to expand oil export capacity.

The Texas Utility Help program has been reopened for low-income Texans to apply.