Midwest pump prices are spiking at worst possible time for Trump

As gasoline prices have ratcheted higher across the U.S. due to the war in Iran, several Midwestern states have seen the steepest increases. That’s putting a strain on many of the voters Republicans need at the midterm elections in November to keep control of Congress.

Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin have all borne the brunt of price hikes since the conflict began 10 weeks ago. Sticker shock is worst in Ohio, where gasoline has surged 72%. That’s double the increase for California, long the poster child for sky-high fuel prices.

“Everybody’s complaining about it,” said Blake Karras-Johnson, a Dayton, Ohio, real estate agent who’s seen the cost to fill her GMC Terrain SUV jump to $80 from $50 before the conflict. That increase is hitting just as her family business, Keys & Co. Realty Group, heads into the prime home-buying season, which often entails two-hour drives for appointments, she said.

For Trump, who ran a successful 2024 campaign partly on promises to tame inflation, surging pump prices have become a political liability. The phenomenon is already squeezing some motorists to cut back on driving while consumer sentiment has fallen to a record low amid broader inflation worries.

Nationally, the average gasoline price is now less than 50 cents-a-gallon off the all-time high set during former President Joe Biden’s tenure in 2022.

More worryingly still for the Trump administration, there are few levers left for it to deal with the problem. The president has already agreed to release inventories from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and eased shipping restrictions to help move fuel from the Gulf Coast to California. Last week, Trump ruled out export curbs.

Midwest gasoline is soaring as the war-driven disruption to global energy markets elevates overseas demand for U.S. fuel, drawing down domestic supplies, while operational hiccups and seasonal maintenance work at refineries in Illinois and Indiana crimp output.

That’s all on top of the historic escalation in international crude prices, which soared as much as 79% as the conflict removed roughly 900 million barrels from worldwide supplies.

Now, with Democrats eager to press the case on affordability and Republicans seeking to defend Trump’s economic record, pump prices are becoming an electoral focal point in contests with national ramifications.

Democrats are hoping to pick up a Senate seat in Ohio as they strive for a net gain of at least four senators in the November midterm elections. They also need to defend an open seat in Michigan if they have any chance of regaining control of the Senate.

In Ohio, former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown has made expensive gas one of the key planks of his campaign to unseat the Republican incumbent, Jon Husted.

“All across Ohio, I’m hearing from families and farmers who are struggling as they pay record prices for gas and diesel,” Brown said in an email. “While Ohioans continue to foot the bill for another endless foreign conflict, Jon Husted has voted six times in support of this war and says things are going ‘much better’ than expected.”

The Husted campaign declined to comment.

Rising gas prices pose a serious problem for the party in power, said Ryan Cummings, chief of staff at Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research and a former staff economist on the Biden Administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

While the recent price increases are certainly being felt by many Americans, the impact is less severe than that of the 1970s oil crises. Back then, gasoline ate up almost 6% of disposable income, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data. That’s three times higher than the percentage estimated for 2025, according to the Energy Department.

‘Live ticker’

In addition, the current upheaval has had a more dramatic impact on places such as India and other Asian nations facing shortages of things like cooking fuel. In some cases, governments have imposed restrictions to conserve energy supplies.

Even so, U.S. pump prices function as a live ticker for inflation that drivers see every day, Cummings said, noting that his research shows that people feel about 5% worse about the economy for every dollar increase in a gallon of gas.

“I think it’s pretty effective to say to people, ‘You’re driving by the gas station today, that’s Trump’s fault,’” he said.

The issue is also front and center in Michigan, where motorists are paying 64% more to fill the tank. Abdul El-Sayed, one of five Democrats vying for the party’s Senate nomination, is running ads decrying high prices on pump screens at filling stations.

Although Californians pay the highest price overall for gasoline at more than $6 a gallon, the wartime increase hasn’t been significantly higher than the national trend.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, gasoline stockpiles are at the second-lowest in history on a seasonal basis, according to U.S. Department of Energy data. In part, that reflects a broader trend since the war began of more U.S. fuel being shipped to nations starved of supplies normally sourced from Persian Gulf and Asian producers.

At the national level, Trump’s efforts to arrest or lessen the price spike have included waiving a 100-year-old maritime law to ease the transport of fuel between U.S. ports, as well as authorizing year-round sales of higher-ethanol E15 gasoline.

These measures have done little to tamp down fuel prices that nationwide are up about $1.50 since the war began.

“The economy continues to be by far the most important issue on the mind of Ohio voters,” said Melissa Miller, a professor of political science at Bowling Green State University in the northwestern corner of Ohio. “That’s nothing new — people tend to vote based on their pocketbooks.”

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(With assistance from Barbara Powell, Alex Newman, Mark Niquette and Steven T. Dennis.)

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