Map shows where gas prices are over $4 only 100 days before midterms
The price of gasoline has soared past $4 per gallon in 28 states, amid renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, posing a problem for President Donald Trump ahead of the midterm elections taking place 100 days from Sunday.
Studies by AAA found that 60 percent of American drivers will have trouble paying for gas if it hits $4 a gallon at the pump. The $4 figure is viewed as a psychologically important threshold that impacts consumer sentiment, posing a problem for the Trump administration as Americans go to the polls on November 3.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment.
Battleground State Gas Prices
As a map by Newsweek shows, prices in 28 states are over the $4 benchmark, including in the key midterm battleground states of Michigan ($4.23), Maine ($4.10), and New Hampshire ($4.06), according to AAA which listed a national average of $4.11 on Sunday.
Michigan is an open seat after the retirement of Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat, and the race is widely seen as one of the most competitive.
In Maine, former state Senate President Troy Jackson became the Democrats’ Senate nominee starting a sprint in the must-win race for his party.
Meanwhile, the retirement of Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen leaves open a Senate race in New Hampshire which Trump lost by fewer than 3 percentage points in the 2024 election.
In the battleground states of Georgia ($3.92) and Ohio ($3.89) the price of gas has not yet breached the $4 barrier.
In Georgia, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff is seeking reelection in a state Trump carried in 2024, making it a key race to determine Senate control. Democrats are targeting Ohio as a GOP-held seat that could become competitive.
California had the highest average gas price in the nation at $5.64 as of Sunday while Indiana had the lowest at $3.51 per gallon.
Why Gas Is Expensive
The U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran on February 28 to degrade its military capabilities and ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Tehran in turn blockaded the Strait of Hormuz through which in pre-war times, one fifth of the world’s oil and gas transited.
This upended energy markets with the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the global benchmark, going over $100.
Prices at the pump have increased from an average of $2.98 a gallon before the war. Gas at the pump first crossed the $4 mark on March 31, just over a month into the Iran war.
The price then hit a four-year high of $4.56 in early May before falling on hopes that a deal between Iran and the United States would reopen the critical waterway and release oil tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf.
Prices dipped after the countries signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17 but have started to climb again after Tehran resumed attacks on ships in the Strait, prompting a U.S. retaliation.
But now there is also the rising threat of Houthi attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea waterway which is the other major route for sea-borne oil.
Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said this week as the U.S. military degrades Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and disrupt the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, “oil and gas prices will plummet back to pre-conflict levels.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and Tony Phillips
