Gas prices reach $3.48 as Iran war sticker shock unites voters across party lines

The price increase has put a domestic cost on a conflict President Donald Trump has defended as necessary, and that a Quinnipiac poll conducted over the weekend found roughly half of registered voters oppose. Three-quarters of registered voters said they were concerned about the war raising gas and oil prices.

The national average price of gasoline reached $3.48 per gallon on Monday, up from $2.90 a month ago before U.S. military operations against Iran began, according to tracking by AAA — a surge that drew complaints from Trump voters, Democrats and independents at gas stations across Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina, even as those motorists remained divided over whether the war itself was justified.

“He said he was going to bring gas down, but the war in Iran is now making everything worse,” said Francisco Castillo, a 43-year-old factory worker who stopped alongside his son’s Ford pickup truck at a station in De Soto, Iowa. Castillo said he had voted for President Donald Trump in the last election expecting an economic repeat of Trump’s first term. “They do what benefits them,” Castillo said. “I have to go to work every day no matter what.”

Trump, speaking at a news conference Monday, defended the conflict. “We’re putting an end to all of this threat once and for all, and the result will be lower oil prices, oil and gas prices for American families,” he said. The war, Trump said, is “just an excursion into something that had to be done.”

A Quinnipiac poll conducted over the weekend found about half of registered voters oppose the U.S. military action against Iran, while about 4 in 10 support it. The results divided sharply along party lines: 89% of Democrats were against the action, 85% of Republicans were for it, and 60% of independents were against it. Three-quarters of registered voters said they were concerned about the war raising gas and oil prices.

Fixed incomes and hard choices

Kathryn Price Engelhard, 70, a retired nonprofit executive director and self-described “strong Democrat,” stopped filling her Subaru Forester just past the halfway mark at a Wawa in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia suburbs. She is on a fixed income. She has also cut her home heating oil order by half.

“I look at the prices of oil in the past and the stupid war, how did we — how did anybody — think that that was not going to impact oil?” she said. “Of course it’s impacting oil.”

In Graham, North Carolina, Kevin Kertesz, 65, a retired Republican, paid $3.34 per gallon at a Shell station — up from $2.59 in the area the previous week. He directed his anger at fuel sellers.

“Everyone who is selling fuel for these elevated prices is price gouging, and there’s nothing we can do about it because we all have to have gasoline to keep driving,” Kertesz said.

Ken Shuttlesworth, 70, an IT manager from Graham who described himself as an independent Democrat, said he can absorb the higher costs but worries about his children, grandchildren and others with less financial margin. Trump, he said, acted without sufficient deliberation.

“We have somebody who doesn’t follow the policy,” Shuttlesworth said. “He follows his instincts.”

Pump grudgingly, hope for relief

In Winter Park, Florida, Ray Albrecht, 67, an independent voter, paid $3.59 per gallon for half a tank at a Speedway station off Interstate 4, keeping his Silverado pickup — pulling a 32-foot camper — rolling toward Wisconsin after Bike Week in Daytona Beach. He said he would stop traveling if prices reached $5 per gallon, given that his truck and camper get 8 miles per gallon.

“I’ve been pretty grateful that the gas prices have been really reasonable” until the past week, Albrecht said.

At the same station, Tyler Nepple, 23, a Republican-leaning startup founder in the Orlando area, said higher prices may factor into his midterm vote but will not change how much he drives.

“You’ve just got to fill it up and bite the bullet and hope that the prices go back down — that’s all I can really do,” Nepple said. “I still have to get from point A to point B, and I need gas to do that.”

Electric vehicle owners watch from the sideline

In the Detroit suburb of Livonia, Michigan, Anthony Gooden, 57, waited at a charging station for his Chevy Equinox EV while gasoline-powered drivers nearby dealt with higher prices.

“Whoa, they’re going through it right now,” said Gooden, who ditched his internal combustion engine vehicle more than a year ago. “And it’s only getting worse.”

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Elvana Hammoud, 55, a diversity strategist, drives both a Mach-E electric SUV and a Ford Raptor truck that costs $100 to fill when gas exceeds $3 per gallon. Her choice has grown simpler.

“I mostly drive the EV, especially to work because I have a long commute,” Hammoud said.

Federal tax credits worth up to $7,500 off new and used EV purchases were eliminated in Trump’s tax and spending bill, which Congress passed last year.

For some motorists, the higher prices carry no political consequence. Joey Perillo, 74, a volunteer firefighter and retired actor from Yardley, Pennsylvania, who identified as a political independent, said his November vote was already decided.

“The gas price could have gone down to two cents a gallon and I’d vote against him,” Perillo said.