(THU 5/5/22)

Intense interest ... The Federal Reserve has certified a half-percentage point interest rate increase in its effort to stem inflation (per The Wall Street Journal), chairman Jerome Powell (above) announced Wednesday. The annual inflation rate was 8.5% for the 12 months ending March 31. 

Markets reacted with enthusiasm, not the expected response from Wall Street for an interest rate hike, which usually occurs a quarter-point at a time rather than half a point. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.81% Wednesday and the “tech-heavy” NASDAQ rose 3.19%, while the Democratic National Committee’s prospects for staunching the long-expected Republican takeover of Congress in the midterms is down. It looks to be coming down to inflation and gas prices versus SCOTUS and abortion.

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About that Vance victory … Wednesday morning quarterbacking of Tuesday’s Ohio primary elections will spill into the weekend op-ed pages and Sunday morning’s political talk shows. The New York Times Thursday chalks up Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance’s narrow win in the GOP primary for Rob Portman’s U.S. Senate seat to loving exposure on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight and right-wing Silicon Valley titan/Gawker-killer Peter Thiel’s $15 million worth of campaign contributions. This appears to be the largest amount ever to a single Senate candidate by an individual megadonor, according to the NYT.

But in Karl Rove’s op-ed in The Wall Street Journal; “Vance’s Ohio Senate Victory Isn’t a Big Win for Trump,” the author maintains that Thiel’s donation of $3.5 million out of that $15 million total to Vance’s SuperPAC after Trump’s late endorsement is what put him over the top. Third-place GOP candidate Matt Dolan made much bigger gains in the last two weeks of the campaign, Rove says. 

Upshot: All the top Republicans in the primary were pro-MAGA. As a celebrity who flipped on his circa 2016 never-Trumper position, Vance was the one to get the nod from the former president. Whether Vance can grow his following beyond the MAGA base this November will depend heavily on inflation and gasoline prices, and on whether SCOTUS overturns Roe v. Wade.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods