Axios

The quickest and most affordable response to historically high diesel prices is also the simplest: Use less of it.

Why it matters: Diesel is so entrenched in farming, trucking and other industries that even soaring prices aren't enough — at least not yet — to prompt a wholesale shift to alternatives from electric semi trucks to manure-powered tractors.

Democrats in a pair of deep-red states are testing the religious right's dominance by putting their Christian faith at the center of their campaigns — potentially creating a template for the party to compete in similarly forbidding terrain.

Why it matters: Upsets by Texas' James Talarico and Kansas' Adam Hamilton would all but ensure that Democrats take the Senate.

• A recent poll from Pew shows both an opening and an obstacle: White evangelicals still strongly favor Republicans, while many other Christian groups lean Democratic or are more narrowly split.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are living out their midterm nightmares — with nominees they didn't want and former colleagues they no longer control.

Why it matters: Together, Schumer and Thune are stuck with five Senate races in which their party establishments thought they had a better chance of winning with someone else.