$10 Against Desperation: Trump's War and the Republicans' Begging-for-Votes Campaign With Gas Gift Cards

$10. That's apparently what the Republican campaign machine in Michigan thinks a desperate driver's attention is worth. Kristi Rogers, the wife of Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, strolled through a Detroit gas station on October 14 wearing a red pantsuit and black high heels. She had one of her husband's campaign stickers on her lapel and $10 gas gift cards in her hand. America is living with the economic consequences of a war Donald Trump started. Meanwhile, his political followers are handing out small cash gifts to people who can barely afford to fill their tanks anymore.

The whole thing was filmed at a Freedom Fuel gas station. Kristi Rogers approached drivers, handed out gift cards, and campaigned for her husband. She told one man who had just filled up that he should have caught her earlier, because then she could have given him a $10 gift card. The footage captures a political embarrassment of almost painful purity. While drivers struggle with skyrocketing prices, the wife of a Republican candidate is passing out money in the form of gift cards in the parking lot.

Kristi Rogers, the wife of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers, is handing out $10 gas gift cards at the Freedom Fuel gas station at the intersection of Harper Avenue and Cadieux Road. But Mike Rogers supports Trump's war policies while simultaneously trying to soften their economic consequences with a tax cut. In doing so, Kristi Rogers is unintentionally demonstrating exactly what Trump's policies are costing American drivers. She's delivering the criticism of Trump herself, even though she's actually trying to campaign for her husband.

Gas in Michigan now costs around $4.58 a gallon. Before the war against Iran began, the price was about $2.85. That's an increase of roughly 61 percent. These days, $10 buys you just over 2 gallons, or a little less than 8 liters. The gift card runs out faster than a political excuse. Kristi Rogers said everyone was suffering from high prices and her husband understood those concerns. Apparently, that understanding is now enough for a gas gift card and the hope of getting a vote in return.

The $10 was also meant to promote Rogers' proposal to temporarily suspend gas taxes. He claims drivers could save about that amount per fill-up. A lovely little detail from Republican history: Back in 1997, Mike Rogers voted to raise the gas tax while serving in the Michigan legislature. Apparently, he considered higher taxes perfectly reasonable back then. Now he has his wife promoting their repeal with a cash giveaway. Political convictions here have about the shelf life of a receipt left out in the rain.

And now we get to the legal side of this Republican campaign begging for votes. Under 18 U.S.C. § 597, federal law makes it a crime to offer people money or anything of monetary value to influence their vote for or against a candidate. Willful violations can carry fines or up to 2 years in prison. Michigan also explicitly prohibits such practices under Section 168.931 of its election law. Even directly or indirectly offering something of monetary value to influence someone's voting decision can constitute a criminal offense. Kristi Rogers is handing out $10 gift cards while campaigning for her husband, who hopes to win a Senate seat in just a few weeks. Recipients reported that Kristi Rogers had encouraged them to consider voting for her husband. At the same time, drivers received campaign materials promoting Rogers and attacking his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed. One of the recipients then shouted into a camera that people should vote for Mike Rogers on Election Day. That combination raises the question of whether a political favor has already crossed the line into vote buying prohibited by law. There has been no court ruling on the matter so far. Based on the available footage, the gift cards were not tied to an explicit promise to vote for anyone. Yet the very 2 laws designed to prevent political support from becoming something that can be bought give this supposedly generous gas station stunt a distinctly uncomfortable significance. This combination of cash giveaways and election campaigning still deserves a thorough legal investigation.

The political backstory is particularly disgusting. Rogers supported Trump's war against Iran, whose economic consequences American drivers now feel every time they pull up to a gas pump. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz drove oil prices higher. A war for which Washington bears political responsibility then becomes the excuse for a campaign stunt involving gas gift cards. Ordinary people pay the bill. The politicians who support those policies hand them $10 back and ask for understanding.

The Republican political strategist Jeff Timmer described the stunt as so clumsy and embarrassing that he could hardly imagine any political professional being behind it. In Detroit, one social media user mocked the fact that $10 would barely cover a trip to the west side of the city and back. Rogers is trailing Abdul El-Sayed in several polls. In one late-September survey, El-Sayed led by 5 percentage points. The race for this Senate seat could also affect the balance of power in Washington.

A total of $181 million has already been spent on political advertising in this race. And right in the middle of that spending frenzy stands Kristi Rogers in a gas station parking lot, handing out $10 gift cards. The gap between the money in politics and the money ordinary people have could hardly be more obvious. Sometimes a democracy loses its dignity through major decisions. Sometimes all it takes is a little gift card handed over between 2 gas pumps.