Republicans hammered Democrats on gas prices in 2024. Now those prices are soaring again — and this time, the roles are reversed.
In the 2024 election cycle, 87 percent of ads mentioning gas or gas prices in House and Senate races were run by Republicans, according to a POLITICO analysis of transcripts from AdImpact, the ad tracking firm.
This year, roughly two-thirds of ads mentioning gas prices have come from Democratic candidates or groups. The same Republicans who ran ads on the issue two years ago have now gone quiet amid voter backlash to high prices and President Donald Trump’s war in Iran. They’re mentioning gas prices far less in emails and on social media, too.
The gas prices messaging reversal reflects a sharp shift of political fortunes in just two years. The GOP is now in power — but affordability remains a top issue for voters across the country. Gas prices, a highly visible cost incurred regularly by many Americans, were a major political challenge for Democrats when former President Joe Biden was in office. But prices are now even higher than they were going into the last election, and Democrats are confident they can squarely blame Trump and his GOP allies for backing the conflict in Iran that has driven up those prices.
“People are really struggling. I’ve been hearing about it on the campaign trail a lot,” said former Iowa state Rep. Christina Bohannan, who is challenging GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in a rematch of one of the closest 2024 House races. “I think it is crystal clear to everyone that these gas prices and diesel prices are the direct result of the war in Iran, which continues to be very, very unpopular.”
Bohannan said the dynamic has shifted from when she ran two years ago.
“People are going to hold accountable the government who is in power, and rightly so,” she said. “And right now, that is Mariannette Miller-Meeks and the Republicans.”
Miller-Meeks’ campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The average gas price currently sits at a bit over $4 per gallon. That’s lower than the Biden-era high water mark of just over $5 per gallon in June 2022, but higher than prices have ever been this late in the year, according to data from the site GasBuddy.
The war in Iran has been the biggest driver of higher prices at the pumps. Iran’s attacks against tankers carrying Middle Eastern crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz to the global market drove oil prices up. And while their price levels aren’t as high as analysts predicted, partly because Trump has kept the market guessing about when the war might end, they sit about $20-a-barrel higher than the week before the war.
Countries that most heavily depended on the Middle East for their gasoline, diesel and jet fuel were forced to turn to the United States to replace that supply after Iran damaged or destroyed refineries in the region. U.S. fuel exports have surged during the war, helping to keep gasoline prices more than a dollar higher than they were before the war.
And energy analysts also see a future where prices spike after the midterms if Trump feels less bound post-election to keep in check any aggression against Iran that could cause gasoline prices to rise further.
“The US midterms remain a useful marker for Iranian behavior,” analysts at commodity market analyst firm BCA Research, wrote in a note to clients. “Before the elections, Iran has more room to agitate because President Trump has incentives to prevent oil prices and the conflict from worsening.”
Trump said he would “never apologize” for recent increases in gas prices during a rally on Long Island just last week, citing the importance of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Democrats see that sort of rhetoric as a gift as they look to tie GOP incumbents to both high prices and the war itself.
Take Arizona’s 6th District, a key House battleground. In 2024, GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani ran an ad lamenting the higher costs of gas, food and medicine — “it all costs more.”
This year, gone are the mentions of high gas prices. Ciscomani’s ads so far have instead gone after Democratic nominee JoAnna Mendoza on crime and sought to tie her to defunding the police, while touting his own efforts to shore up funding for border patrol and support for getting rid of taxes on tips. Ciscomani’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Instead, it’s Democrats attacking Ciscomani over gas prices: This spring, a Democratic dark-money group accused Ciscomani of voting to increase gas prices in its own ad, citing his votes that opposed restricting Trump’s war powers vis-a-vis Iran.
“Every time people go to the grocery store or the gas pump, or pay their electric or utility bill, they are reminded of how Ciscomani has been absolutely spineless in standing up to Trump,” Mendoza said.
Republican candidates’ hesitance to address gas prices goes beyond TV ads. Republican members of Congress and candidates in House battlegrounds have mentioned gas prices less frequently on social media since March, when prices surged after Trump first launched attacks on Iran, according to a POLITICO review of posts on the platform X.
This year is also the first year since 2020 in which official email newsletters from Democratic members of Congress have mentioned gas more often than those from Republicans, according to data from DCInbox, which tracks members’ newsletters.
Some Republicans say it’s still important to go on offense on the issue, particularly as affordability has dominated voter concerns. Americans for Prosperity Action, a conservative super PAC that’s involved in a dozen House and Senate races, has made energy prices part of its ads. Bill Riggs, a spokesperson for the group, said that their canvassers’ conversations with voters have shown anti-energy policies from democratic socialists opened up Democrats to attacks, but Republicans also have to show they have their own plan.
“Contrast really is key — we don’t just criticize the DSA’s platform for the legitimate fact it’s going to make energy scarce and prices go up, we also connect voters to a credible plan to bring costs down,” Riggs said. “AFP Action’s candidates stand for energy abundance and lower costs, and when we walk swing voters and base Republicans through that contrast at the doors, they move our way.”
One ad the group ran in Ohio this summer admitted that “gas prices are too high” but argued that electing Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown would further drive up costs, while GOP Sen. Jon Husted would “stop today’s pain from becoming permanent.”
Asked about the ad, Brown’s campaign pointed back to the Iran war and its impact on costs.
“Ohioans are already being crushed by rising costs, and Jon Husted has voted 13 times to continue the reckless war in Iran that’s caused gas and diesel prices to spike,” campaign spokesperson Lauren Chou said. “Husted should be focused on lowering costs and easing the economic burden for working families, not backing an endless war in the Middle East that has already cost us billions of dollars.”
Ben Lefebvre contributed to this report.
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