The affordability message at the first-ever Republican midterm convention clashes with what voters are experiencing at supermarkets and gas stations.
President Donald Trump tried to grapple with this before boarding Air Force One to fly to Dallas for the two-day convention. “Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon.
Hours earlier, the price of oil rose to more than $100 per barrel for the first time since July. The average price of gas hit a record high over Labor Day weekend: $4.14 a gallon, up 32 cents from the previous record in 2012.
Trump is asking voters to suspend their disbelief as they tune in for what he promises will be “a RALLY like none other!”
On social media, he says prices will plunge “when we WIN the war with Iran.” But he offers no satisfying explanation for how the war will be won.
Inflation continues to run well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent, as it has since March 2021. The cost of gas is among the few metrics the president could have pointed to in 2025 to indicate that prices were coming down. His war of choice in Iran has taken away that talking point and undermined the GOP’s edge with voters about which party they trusted to handle the economy and inflation.
Oil prices rose Wednesday as markets responded to further disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, which had accounted for about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. The United States hit five Iranian ships in response to attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia that were carried out by Iranian-funded Houthi rebels, as well as an attempted missile attack on a Navy vessel.
The Republican National Committee promised that the convention in Dallas will highlight the party’s “common-sense agenda focused on affordability, security, safety and American strength.” Will that agenda offer answers for the 73 percent of Americans who tell pollsters the president hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s biggest problems? Or the 65 percent who think economic conditions have deteriorated since he took office? Or the 56 percent who say they are “very concerned” about gas prices?
Affordability comes in many forms. On Wednesday, Trump said the war “will end immediately after our election.” He sounded like a man who thinks he can afford to stall for time.
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