One might expect Donald Trump to be concerned about gas prices. Less than two months out from the midterms, gas costs 37 percent more than it did a year ago. Home-heating oil was up 52 percent as of August, and diesel is up a staggering 69 percent. None of those numbers are likely to go down significantly as long as the Iran war drags on. Meanwhile, just last week, a Saudi oil pipeline that carries about 4 percent of the global oil supply shut down after being bombed. (No one has claimed credit for the attack.)
But Trump says he isn’t worried. Speaking with reporters last week, he insisted that the U.S., not Iran, is in control of the Strait of Hormuz. “Right after the election,” he said, “oil prices are going to be tumbling downward.”
Even if that prediction were based on anything resembling fact, the timing would be too late to do Trump much good. Political scientists tend to agree that gas prices influence voter behavior. Although many voters no doubt understand that the president isn’t usually directly responsible for the price of oil, this time, he is. In fact, the oil shock related to Trump’s war of choice with Iran is the only reason the U.S. has any inflation to speak of. Inflation in all non-energy consumer purchases is at just 2 percent over the past year. If Democrats manage to take back the House and Senate in November, despite an inhospitable electoral map, the Trump effect on gas prices may well be the reason.
[Jonathan Chait: Does Trump want Republicans to win the midterms?]
Voters hate inflation, and gas prices are especially hard to tune out. Juan Felipe Riaño, an economist who has studied inflation’s political consequences, told me that voters understand that price increases translate into lower real wages. The more they drive, the more pronounced the effect. People who live in rural areas and exurbs have the most to lose, because they have the longest commutes. These are the reddest parts of the country, meaning that they are home to millions of voters whom Democrats are trying to persuade to vote blue. According to a Brookings Institution analysis, the average voter in a Republican-held district drives 26 percent more miles than their counterpart in a Democratic district. Other research has found that those with longer drive times are more likely to hold the president accountable for increases in gas prices.
These Trump-friendly areas are exactly where Democrats need to make inroads. They can’t take the Senate without winning multiple states that Trump won by more than 10 points in 2024. Meanwhile, although gerrymandering has created more red districts, it has done so by spreading the Republican advantage more thinly across districts. This has created more places where Democrats could win in a wave election. Currently, Democrats lead Republicans on generic congressional polls by about 7 points. In a plus-7 election, their best recruits could pick up seats even in districts that went heavily for Trump in 2024.
Perhaps the best thing Trump could do to avoid that outcome would be to bring gas prices down before Election Day. His approval rating has been declining almost continuously since he took office a second time, and since August, it has hovered around 38 percent, according to Silver Bulletin. Voters say that their top issue is the cost of living, and only 25 percent approve of how Trump has handled it. That’s a decline of nine points since the war with Iran began.
[Sarah Longwell: Voters have a message for Democrats]
As for Republican candidates in competitive races, their best bet for avoiding the gas-price backlash might be to distance themselves from the president. But Trump has made that extremely difficult. Last week, Republicans gathered in Dallas for an unusual midterm convention devoted to celebrating Trump’s greatness. At one point, he asked the crowd to repeat a “pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States.”
And if Trump’s goal is to remind Republican candidates that their voters’ first loyalty is to him, not them, he seems to be succeeding. Only a tiny handful of congressional Republicans have publicly denounced the Iran war. Several vulnerable Republicans have refused to allow daylight between themselves and Trump, even when doing so would seem to be tactically wise. Michael Whatley, Mike Collins, and Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominees in the swing states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Michigan, respectively, all spoke at the convention. So, too, did Jon Husted and Ken Paxton, who are running in Ohio and Texas, two states Trump won by more than 10 points in 2024, but where polls suggest that Democrats have a chance to pick up Senate seats.
Even when voters believe the president is to blame for painful gas-price increases, they may be unsure about how aligned their local House or Senate candidate is with the White House. Heading into the midterms, Trump is going out of his way to make sure no such uncertainty exists.
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