President Donald Trump‘s Iran war is wreaking historic havoc on gas prices at home.
A gallon of gas has remained at least $4 a gallon for an unprecedented 158 consecutive days this year, Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at fuel-price tracking platform GasBuddy, posted on X Wednesday.
The Iran war has slowed transport through the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping lane responsible for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. That slowdown has driven up oil prices, leading to higher prices at the pump.
Trump defended gas prices Tuesday, saying they “are lower than when Biden was president.” But while federal data shows average gas prices hit higher numbers under Biden, they’ve remained above $4 longer under Trump, GasBuddy reported.
Voters appear to have lost patience, too. A Politico poll this week found that 29 percent of undecided voters still wouldn’t be more persuaded to vote Republican, even if Trump was able to cut gas prices by a dollar ahead of the midterms.
Consumers haven’t had significant relief at the gas pump in a long time, and it may have an impact on the results of upcoming midterm elections (PA)
On Thursday, the five most expensive states for gas were west of the Rockies, according to motor club AAA:
And the states with the lowest gas prices were primarily in the South and Southwest:
Gas prices averaged $2.98 a gallon February 26, two days before Trump attacked Iran. In the following two months, gas prices shot up past $4.
From March to May, consumers paid an estimated $59 billion more in gas costs over the same period one year earlier.
Gas prices pushed inflation up from 2.4 percent in February to 4.2 percent in May, a three-year high at the time. Inflation has eased since then, falling to 3.5 percent in July and August before creeping up to 3.7 percent in September.
The rollercoaster gas prices may have caused irreparable damage to the Republican party’s chances to woo undecided voters in battleground states.
“There’s nothing that Trump can do, and frankly, even if he did something, no one would believe it anyway at this point,” a GOP operative told Politico.