With $6 Diesel, the Iran War Is Taxing Trump Country First - Newsweek

The war with Iran launched by President Donald Trump is creating a diesel price shock that is striking hardest in states that voted for him two years ago on his pledge to bring down costs from the "Bidenflation" era.

It is landing hard less than two months before the crunch midterms in which Republicans face a tough battle on the cost of living issue—worsened by the kind of Middle East war that Trump had said was in America's past—to retain their majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Trump himself has acknowledged that gas prices may not come down until after the midterms, and this week promised what he called a "dividend" of $5,000 for every American adult if voters returned Republicans to control of Congress.

Then, on Friday, diesel hit a record-high national average of $6.05 a gallon, up from $5.85 a week ago and $3.70 a year ago, as the war with Iran launched by Trump in February continues to heavily disrupt global fuel flows.

Diesel powers much of the freight and delivery network and is widely used in farm equipment, allowing higher fuel costs to move from the pump into groceries, packages and other goods.

Some businesses have already added fees to cover higher transportation costs.

Federal Highway Administration data offers a striking political geography to the diesel spike.

In its 2023 ranking, diesel accounted for 55.45 percent of highway fuel use in Wyoming, 47.37 percent in Alaska and more than 30 percent in each of the 15 most diesel-intensive states.

Trump carried 13 of those 15 states in 2024, making clear the sharp political problem for him in November's midterms.

Among the 15 least diesel-intensive states outside Washington, D.C., Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent, carried 12 of them.

The figures measure statewide highway fuel mix rather than household costs, so they cannot show which voters will feel the increase most.

Higher freight costs also travel across state lines, spreading the burden nationally.

But there is also evidence that the overlap reaches beyond state economies and into the kinds of vehicles Republican voters drive.

A nationally representative Consumer Reports survey conducted by NORC found that Republicans and Republican-leaning Americans were more than twice as likely as Democrats and Democratic leaners to say their main vehicle was a pickup truck, 15 percent to 7 percent.

Pickups, in turn, were far more likely to run on diesel than other common passenger vehicles.

In the same survey, 7 percent of pickup drivers said their vehicle used diesel, compared with 1 percent of sedan drivers and 1 percent of drivers of two-row SUVs.

A newer analysis from the battleground state of Pennsylvania found the partisan vehicle divide in actual registration records.

The Philadelphia Inquirer analyzed more than 11 million vehicles and found Ford trucks accounted for 10 percent of passenger vehicles in ZIP codes where at least two-thirds of active voters were registered Republicans, compared with less than 4 percent in the most heavily Democratic ZIP codes.

Ford trucks also ranked first in 238 strongly conservative urban and suburban ZIP codes, suggesting the Republican affinity for pickups extends beyond farm country.

The timing is plainly difficult for Trump and his Republicans.

Forty-seven percent of registered voters told Reuters/Ipsos in late August that the cost of living would be the single most important factor in their midterm vote, while 71 percent of adults disapproved of Trump’s handling of the issue.

Trump also carries high support in rural areas. But farm exposure to higher diesel costs will likely grow as the harvest accelerates.

USDA reported that 5 percent of the U.S. corn crop had been harvested by September 6, ahead of the five-year average.

Pew Research Center's study of validated 2024 voters found Trump won 69 percent of voters who described their communities as rural, against 29 percent for Harris.

Taken together, the evidence shows that the constituencies most closely associated with pickups, rural driving and diesel-intensive local economies overlap unusually closely with Trump's political base.

Trump has defended the Iran campaign as necessary to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon while acknowledging its energy consequences.

On Wednesday, he predicted, "Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward."

An escalating conflict between Houthi militants in Yemen and Saudi Arabia is putting fresh pressure on energy flows through the Red Sea, an alternative route to Iran's Strait of Hormuz, where oil shipping has been throttled by the war.

If—and it is a big if at the moment—Gulf oil flows improve, diesel prices could relieve that pressure before it works further through consumer prices.

But if disruptions persist through harvest and the November 3 midterms, which appears to be the more likely outcome, the unusual overlap between diesel dependence and Trump’s electoral map may cost Republicans dearly in Congress.