“It’s not tariffs… it’s the war, it’s gas prices, it’s diesel.”
In leaked audio obtained by Axios, Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for senate in Texas, spoke candidly about what he believes are the biggest issues hurting his campaign. The Iran war, which has dragged on for almost eight months now, has put Texans – and the rest of the nation – in an economic bind, one which President Donald Trump had promised to avoid.
Crude oil prices have once again risen above $100 a barrel. The national average for gasoline is hovering above $4. With Republicans nationwide being burdened by the stench of incumbency – regardless of whether or not the individual candidate is currently in office – a return-to-power seems all but imminent for the Democrats in the House of Representatives, and maybe even the Senate as well.
This is even true in “Trump Country.”
The war itself is a topic which evokes hardline opinions on both sides. Fierce debates have been had in elite circles over the wisdom of launching the military campaign against Iran, the strategic blunders of the Trump administration, and the way in which the war has been conducted. What has been a bipartisan concern, however, is the rise in fuel prices brought upon by the war.
People en masse may not know the technical details of the raging conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, or even where to find it on a map. What they do know is that when they turn on social media or turn on the TV, the campaign ads they see coming from Democrats consistently associate the skyrocketing fuel prices with the war in Iran – attaching the Republican opponent to the White House’s unpopular war.
Meanwhile, the rebuttal from Trump isn’t an explicit denial of these accusations. Rather, he has embraced them.
“It’s a small price to pay,” Trump said at a rally in Alaska on October 14, “for stopping [Iran] from having a nuclear weapon.”
Trump’s fanbase, collectively referred to as “MAGA,” have been known for their unwavering loyalty to the president. Trump famously joked in a 2015 stump speech “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” The spirit of this has been generally correct. On most issues, Trump’s supporters have stuck with him regardless of his many contradictions – be it on the Epstein files, government spending, or the merits of various DC swamp creatures.
There has been a crackup, though. Trump’s swagger – his inability to disgust his diehard fans even if he tried – seems to be weakening.
The Iran war, while historically unpopular, isn’t the sole reason for this. Neither is his baseline hawkishness, which contradicts his dovish campaign rhetoric. The majority of Republicans were happy to support Trump’s January 2026 operation in Venezuela, and most also approved of the bombing of various small boats off the coast of Central and South America. But this war had a different effect on Trump’s coalition than the one in Iran.
For one, the Venezuela operation was relatively limited in its scale, and the same can be said for the boat strikes. The fighting in Caracas lasted mere hours and resulted in no American casualties. President Delcy Rodríguez’s regime has remained in power, and blowback – at least in terms of significant negative ramifications – has not been felt in the U.S. to this point (that doesn’t mean it won’t appear in the future, to be clear).
Most importantly, the economic impact of the operation wasn’t notable. There weren’t any immediate concerns about twenty percent of the world’s energy supply being stuck behind a missile-riddled waterway, for example.
The situation has been exactly the reverse in the Middle East.
