Four years ago, stickers of then-President Joe Biden as the cost of gasoline soared. Featuring an image of the 46th president pointing at the price displayed on the pump, they were captioned with the words, “I did that!”
Gas prices are once again on the rise a month after the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, resulting in a severe crimp in the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. And fingers are once again pointing at the party occupying the White House, now led by President Donald Trump.
But this time, the blame game has taken on a distinctly more digital and targeted approach as November’s midterm elections come into view.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last week an ad campaign targeting Republican incumbents it believes are vulnerable in 44 congressional districts, including U.S. Reps. Jeff Crank in the Colorado Springs-based 5th District and Gabe Evans in the 8th District north of Denver.
The ultrashort six-second video ad with the words “D.C. Republicans Did That!” It’s being “geo-targeted” to people’s Facebook and Instagram feeds when they come within close range of select gas stations in either district.
“Now, when voters fill up at the pump, they’ll have yet another reminder that D.C. Republicans are squarely to blame for the price of gas, and everything else, being too damn high,” DCCC spokeswoman Courtney Rice said.
It’s no surprise that Democrats are taking advantage of elevated prices at the pump to gain political advantage, said Jon Krosnick, a political science professor at Stanford University. He co-authored a 2016 study titled which found that a 10-cent increase led to a 0.6-percentage-point drop in support.
The price for regular unleaded fuel in Colorado sat at an average a day before the war started in late February, according to AAA. On Friday, it averaged — an increase of just over $1 from a month ago.
While November’s election is not a presidential one, Krosnick said there will very likely be crossover in terms of dissatisfaction toward the party in charge of Congress.
“Every Republican running for office should be worried about gas prices going up,” he said.
Gas prices play an outsized role in how people gauge the severity of inflation at any given moment, Krosnick said. On nearly every corner of major thoroughfares throughout the country, giant lighted signs display the price of petrol.
“There’s no other consumer good that is as advertised to consumers like gasoline,” Krosnick said. “Not everybody in the family may be filling up the car, but everyone is driving past gas stations every day.”
Though gas prices were appreciably higher under the Biden administration following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine — reaching a peak of $4.87 per gallon of regular-grade gasoline in Colorado in June of that year, according to — Krosnick said voters care about what’s going on now.
“It’s a present-focused decision,” he said.
A ‘mitigating factor’ in the 8th District?
That was the case for Michael Kondur, a handyman who was filling up his truck last week at a Valero station at West 88th Avenue and Pecos Street in Thornton, in Evans’ congressional district. The price there was a comparatively forgiving $3.69 per gallon for regular.
“It’s the first time I’ve had a full tank in three weeks — and it will be gone in three days,” he said, also using choice words to describe Trump and Republicans in general. “I run my own business with this truck and I don’t have food on my table. Any Republican has got to go.”
Across the street at a Maverik station, where the price for a gallon of gas was nearly 10 cents higher, Carolyn McDowell said she was able to part with only $30 to fill her Chevy Silverado’s tank halfway. Her husband, who works for the delivery service DoorDash, is taking a real hit.
“It’s impacting his ability to make money,” she said.
McDowell said she’s against war in Iran, a stance that is in line with 61% of Americans who also disapprove of the conflict, according to a conducted between March 16 and March 22. The poll also found that 45% of respondents felt the military action was not going well, while 25% felt it was going extremely or very well.
Former Colorado GOP Chair Dick Wadhams, who has run his share of political campaigns, said there is no doubt that gas prices pose a problem for Evans, who’s seeking reelection in Colorado’s most politically competitive district, and Crank, who won comfortably in 2024 but is being targeted by Democrats more aggressively this year.
“The price of gas as it relates to inflation and the cost of living was a big part of Trump beating Harris in 2024,” he said of Trump’s defeat of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. “Democrats will try to make (gas prices) an issue right through November — there’s no doubt about it. The Republicans are in a vulnerable position.”
But there is a “mitigating factor,” Wadhams said, that Evans should be able to use to fight back in the 8th District — which covers a large chunk of Weld County, home to Colorado’s most productive oil and gas field.
“Gabe has a good argument against Democrats that they want to kill the oil and gas industry,” he said.
Two years ago, Democrats in the state legislature floated a bill that aimed to halt the issuance of new oil and gas permits by the end of 2029, a proposal that raised hackles in the industry. Lawmakers eventually .
In December, Republican state lawmakers attacked the Public Utilities Commission’s approval of a “clean heat” plan requiring Colorado’s larger utilities that supply natural gas to homes and businesses to substantially lower emissions over the next decade. The plan, they asserted, amounts to a mandate that forces families to buy “costly heat pumps, retrofits and electric appliances” to switch from gas to electricity.
This month, the influential environmental group Conservation Colorado filed ballot measures with the state elections office that would slap stricter penalties on the energy industry for the pollution and contamination that result from its operations.
In a , the group said it filed the measures to filed by the conservative political action committee Advance Colorado that would enshrine in the state constitution the right of producers to sell natural gas in the state and the right of consumers to use the energy source in their homes and businesses.
A spokeswoman for Evans’ campaign who declined to give her name called the Democrats’ stance on gas prices “hypocritical” in a statement.
“For years, they have pushed radical climate policies and overregulation, banning natural gas for residential heating, eliminating jobs for hardworking families, and handcuffing the very oil and gas workers who ensure reliable and affordable resources for Coloradans,” her statement read. “Now they expect us to believe they care about gas prices?”
Potentially bleak forecast
Republicans don’t just have gas prices to worry about — diesel prices are even worse.
Where a gallon of diesel fuel came in at $3.52 a month ago, , on Friday it hit $4.94.
Twenty percent to 25% of the operating cost for a long-haul trucker is fuel, said Greg Fulton, the president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, which represents more than 500 trucking companies in the state.
“This has come at a very difficult time for the industry,” he said of the spike in energy prices. “This is a situation where profit margins are very thin already.”
During the last peak in oil prices in 2022, Fulton said, some of that sticker shock was offset by the fact that more freight was on the road because consumers were buying more goods to accommodate new stay-at-home lifestyles set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic.
“They were able to pass along the increases easier,” Fulton said of his industry.
Trump’s widespread tariffs have made things even more constrained for trucking companies when it comes to trying to keep operating expenses down these days, he said.
“Hopefully this is more of a short-term situation,” he said.
While Iran last week , oil transport through the vital waterway was still badly hobbled by the war. Al Salazar, the director of research at oil and gas analysis firm Enverus, said the longer the strait was choked, the longer gas prices would stay high.
If the Strait of Hormuz were to remain largely closed through the end of May, Enverus projected that Brent crude prices would stay around $95 a barrel through this year and edge up to $100 a barrel in 2027. That’s because it would take time to replenish all the tanks and oil-holding facilities that are being tapped now, Salazar said.
“By the time the flow is fixed, your stocks (of oil) have all drawn down and you’re left at alarmingly low levels,” he said.
