Home heating oil will be the next big shock - lowest current price in Charlestown is $5.18
Brad Reed for Common Dreams
According to a Saturday report from Axios, incumbent Republicans are
fretting about the impact that skyrocketing gasoline and diesel prices will
have on the 2026 midterm elections,
particularly since their own internal polling shows voters are placing blame
for the price hikes on Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran.
“Diesel’s at an all-time high,” one GOP operative told Axios.
“Gas is about $4 a gallon. We can’t message that away.”
Another Republican source told Axios that GOP candidates
don’t even have the option of distancing themselves from the president and his
unpopular war given the iron grip he has on voters they will need to turn out
in crucial races.
“We have no choice,” said the source. “We’re stuck on the
boat with him whether we like it or not.”
US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy tried to spin the record-high diesel prices as something outside the president’s control during a Saturday interview on Fox News.
“When you look at diesel, you have to look at Russia
and Ukraine,” Duffy
said. “Russia was a major exporter, the second-biggest exporter in the world,
on diesel. They stopped their exports, so that puts pressure on the global
market. But President Trump has pushed American energy dominance, we are
producing more energy now than in the past.”
Duffy added that “it’s only President Trump who’s trying to
drive these prices down,” even though the president’s war has been the primary
reason they’ve been going up.
As a report published Friday by The Associated Press
explained, the cost of diesel has a particularly strong impact on the price of
food since the fuel is used to power both farm equipment and the trucks used to
deliver food to grocery stores.
“Fuel accounts for roughly 15% to 30% of the total cost of
food, according to the Independent Grocers Alliance, a grouping of 7,500 global
supermarkets,” reported the AP. “So higher diesel costs often result in more
expensive groceries, although it can take a while for energy shocks to wind
their way through the supply chain.”
The rising cost of groceries has
been a major source of stress for US consumers for years, and Trump during the
2024 presidential campaign vowed that
prices on groceries would come down starting on his very first day in office.
