President Donald Trump appears confident that a quick and victorious war with Iran will override voters’ concerns about rising gas prices, a major gamble as November’s midterm elections approach.
Affordability is consistently at the top of voters’ concerns. While Trump has focused on the issue during his 2024 presidential campaign, he gave his strongest indication yet on Thursday that he believed grander geopolitical moves were taking precedence in his calculations.
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. BUT, of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stoping (sic) an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East and, indeed, the World. I won’t ever let that happen!” he said in a post on Truth Social.
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Though his decision to strike Iran was highly popular among his base, the Trump administration’s conflicting justifications for the war have played less well among the wider populace. Recent polling has found a consistent majority of Americans disapprove of the war with Iran.
52% of U.S. adults disapprove of his handling of Iran, while just 39% approve, according to an Economist/YouGov poll, conducted March 6-9. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted March 6-8 found that 53% of voters oppose the war with Iran, with 40% supporting it. An NBC News poll conducted Feb. 27-March 3 found that 52% of voters believed the U.S. should not have taken military action against Iran compared to 41% who said it should have.
Trump has long been skeptical of military entanglements, particularly in the Middle East, and the war with Iran represents his most drastic military action yet. From the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, he’s presented the extensive air campaign as a quick blitz to decapitate and neutralize the Islamic Republic, giving a timeline of a few weeks to a month. As the effect of the Strait of Hormuz blockade has been felt in global oil prices, he’s shifted to declaring effective victory, saying Iran’s military is destroyed and he can end the war at any time.
His messaging took another U-turn on Thursday with his Truth Social post about the necessity of stopping the Iranian government from obtaining nuclear weapons and spreading chaos, while also claiming rising oil prices would actually benefit the U.S.
Trump administration officials have pointed out in the past that a key to reducing the cost of living is lowering energy costs through energy abundance, the underlying logic behind Trump’s oft-repeated phrase of “drill baby drill.” As the logic goes, all sectors of the economy are downstream from energy, meaning reduced energy costs will be reflected in reduced costs elsewhere. White House spokesman Kush Desai hinted as much in a statement to MarketWatch ahead of the State of the Union address.
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“President Trump pledged to turn the page on Joe Biden’s inflation and affordability crisis, and the Trump administration is embarking on an ambitious agenda of reform across every sector of our economy to deliver: from MFN [most favored nation] deals to lower drug prices to an energy abundance push to lower prices at the pump,” he said.
“This overarching agenda has already cooled inflation and cut prices of many household essentials, with more progress in store for the American people,” the administration spokesman continued.
A spike in oil prices due to the war in Iran would wipe out these gains and threaten one of Trump’s central messaging points on how he has helped voters with affordability.
Even before the war, many voters were skeptical about the Trump administration’s handling of affordability. Roughly 47% of respondents said affordability has worsened over the past year, according to a late February YouGov survey conducted for MarketWatch. Only 18% responded that the cost of living has improved. Trump was also a favorite target of blame, with 41% of respondents saying that Trump was responsible for affordability challenges.
Trump’s other front in his fight against affordability, lower taxes, is also less convincing to voters, with just 12% saying lower taxes would improve their personal financial situations. In contrast, 38% said that lower prices would most improve their personal financial situations.
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Trump’s approval rating has varied throughout his term, but aggregators currently have him around 42%. The RealClearPolitics aggregator has Trump’s approval rating at 43.2% as of March 11, while the New York Times aggregator sets it at 41%.
If the Strait of Hormuz blockade continues, as Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has ordered, gas prices could continue their ascent and drastically hurt Trump’s approval ratings.
