Poll: Even a $1 gasoline cut would not likely sway most voters polled to vote Republican
With fewer than two weeks until the November 3 midterms, US voters were unlikely to see relief at the pump from measures President Donald Trump had promoted to bring down gasoline and diesel prices. National averages for both fuels were still substantially higher than a year earlier even after a marginal decline from the previous month, and energy analysts said voters would not see lower costs by November 3.
Sharie Smith, 41, a home health nurse from Toledo, was airing up her car’s tires at a Speedway in Perrysburg, Ohio. She said she used to fill her gray Chevy Malibu every 10 days for $30 to $40, but the cost had risen to $50 to $60. “It’s affecting my budget,” she said. “You got to take away certain things, you got to take away from your kids, like extracurricular activities.” Smith said higher gas prices were also making it harder to pay the fees for her children’s football games. She pointed to grocery prices as another strain on her household budget. She added: “And I don’t even have a big car. I feel bad for those people with big cars, like trucks.”
Earlier in October, Trump announced several diesel measures, including promoting greater use of red-dye diesel normally reserved for off-highway use, temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian diesel imports and announcing a one-time $8 billion diesel-fuel subsidy for farmers to help with the harvest. On his social media site, Trump wrote: “Diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST! Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my greatest priority.”
According to AAA, national average gasoline and diesel prices were down marginally from a month earlier but remained substantially higher than a year earlier. Gasoline cost $4.29 a gallon, more than $1.25 more than in 2025, while diesel cost $6.30, nearly 75% higher. A Politico poll dated October 10 found that most voters polled would not likely be swayed to vote Republican even if Trump were to bring the price of gasoline down by $1 a gallon. The Guardian reported that polls showed US voters were deeply upset by high gas prices and likely to punish Republicans as a result.
Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, said Trump’s diesel measures would have no impact. “Zero. No elaboration needed,” he said. Andrew Critchlow, head of energy news for Dow Jones Energy, said the Russia deal allowed an initial import of 2.24 million barrels of diesel, with more potentially to follow. Critchlow said that amount equaled about 14 hours of US diesel demand, while the global diesel market uses nearly 30 million barrels a day.
Hirs said the Russian barrels did not represent new global supply because they already would have gone elsewhere at a discount. He said: “It was going someplace. It was going someplace at a discount. And now what Trump has done is, rather than have Russia sell it at a discount, they’re selling it for full value. He’s given them a huge windfall.”
Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital, said diesel is critical to the last-mile delivery of most consumer goods, exposing households and businesses to higher prices. Thummel said energy prices across the board were higher because the US war with Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s crude oil flows. He said Middle East refineries were damaged early in the war, Chinese refiners could not obtain enough oil to produce additional fuel for world markets, and Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries had further reduced global supplies. US refineries had access to domestic oil, but they were running at maximum capacity, Thummel said.
The White House said its executive order temporarily allowing greater use of red-dye diesel was intended to save money for farmers and truckers. The fuel is exempt from federal excise taxes because it is intended for farmers and off-road machinery, and it is dyed red to distinguish it from regular diesel. The White House said the 24.4 cents-per-gallon discount would save those drivers about $60 on a 250-gallon fill-up. Hirs said the change would give farmers more competition for fuel, which will raise their prices. He said farmers were already facing higher operating costs and the loss of China as a key export market because of the US trade war with China.
Jay Hatfield, chief investment officer of real-asset investment firm InfraCap, said prices could rise as energy demand increases during the winter heating months, especially in places that use heating oil. He noted that energy prices are seasonal and usually lower at this time of year because it is neither the cooling nor heating season, even though prices were already high. Hatfield also said there were risks of higher prices if fighting in the Middle East escalated, pointing to a pickup in Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.
Critchlow said many countries had depleted their strategic oil stocks and few had released reserves, meaning it might not take much additional disruption to push prices higher. “I think that we are in a very fragile position now, marketwise,” he said. The energy experts said the only moves that would lower energy costs were reopening the Strait of Hormuz and negotiating a peace accord between Russia and Ukraine because the two conflicts were interlinked with energy markets. Critchlow said resolving them could leave the world oversupplied with fossil-fuel energy two years from now.
Lotanpa Jones, a home healthcare aide, was filling up at a Mobil in St Charles, Missouri, earlier in October. Regular fuel cost $4.09 a gallon, while the national average price on October 1 was $3.15 to $3.19, according to AAA. Diesel was $6.59 a gallon, up from $3.71 a year earlier, according to data tracked by the US Energy Information Administration.
Jones said she last filled her car two days earlier and was now adding another $55. “I can tell you this is making me want to park my car,” she said. “It’s affecting a lot because you gotta decide what you’re gonna buy,” she said. “It’s major.” Jones said she thought the price increase would affect how people vote. “Most definitely. Yes, this is extreme.”
Critchlow foresaw that high energy prices would eventually push electrification among consumers, heavy industry and agriculture in the US. He compared the coming shift in consumption and energy mix to the 1970s energy shock. “We are going to see something similar,” he said.
The Guardian assessed that gas prices were likely to take their toll on Republicans on November 3. Back in Ohio, Smith said she had already lost patients because of Medicaid eligibility changes made by the state, and she criticized Republicans for them. “They’re thinking about the wrong things, and now the price of gas is going up,” Smith said. She said of her vote: “I’m going Democrat.” She added: “They don’t have any idea what people are going through.”
MSI previously reported that Trump pulls fuel-price levers as midterm elections approach. The October 10 Politico poll updates the political stakes: most voters polled would not likely be swayed to vote Republican even if gasoline fell by $1 a gallon.