Gasoline price average under Trump surpasses Biden era

Gasoline prices surged this year after the start of the U.S. and Israel’s war in Iran, crippling oil flows and further squeezing global refining capacity. (Caroline Brehman/Bloomberg)

The average price Americans are paying for gasoline under President Donald Trump has overtaken the average during the Biden administration, underscoring the political pressure on Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.

Trump had pledged to lower gasoline prices to below $2 a gallon, but almost two years into his presidency the fuel’s retail cost has averaged $3.472 a gallon, according to AAA. That surpassed the average under former President Joe Biden of $3.471 a gallon by less than a cent, according to daily AAA data released Oct. 26.

Gasoline prices surged this year after the start of the U.S. and Israel’s war in Iran, crippling oil flows and further squeezing global refining capacity. Over the past eight months, U.S. average pump prices have risen 43% while diesel prices have surged almost 70% and topped the highest level on record. The issue has become a flashpoint for Trump’s Republican Party in midterm elections, as inflation-weary voters are further strapped by elevated energy prices.

Americans have never paid this much for fuel this late in the year, with a national average price of $4.286 a gallon as of Sunday, according to AAA. Biden still holds the record for the single-highest nationwide gasoline price of $5.02 a gallon in June 2022, in the months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The global market is missing about 400,000 barrels a day of gasoline that would normally be exported from the Middle East, said Susan Bell, senior vice president, downstream at Rystad Energy.

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(Bloomberg)

The cost of diesel has been the main focus for the Trump administration in the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, with prices reaching a record high of $6.53 a gallon last month. Average diesel prices under Trump have already exceeded the same figure under Biden by about 6%.

Fuel prices have become a lightning rod for critics of the Trump administration because their rapid increase this year has exacerbated a cost-of-living crisis that voters point to as their top concern. They also represent a broken promise from Trump, who pilloried Biden constantly for high pump prices during the 2024 presidential election.

Trump has repeatedly said that gasoline and diesel prices will come down once the war with Iran is over, but the conflict is showing no signs of abating. At a rally this weekend, Trump celebrated how U.S. oil companies have added “hundreds of billions of dollars” for the country.

“ ‘President Trump is talking about all the money they’re making while people are suffering at the pump, that’ll be the headline,’ ” he said. “I don’t give a damn. I’m going to say it, we’re making a freaking fortune.”

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High energy costs are threatening to turn solidly red areas of the U.S. into swing states. Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Texas and Alaska, which Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024, are now considered toss-ups for Senate races by the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election forecaster. Households in each of these states, with the exception of Texas, spend more of their income on energy than the U.S. average, according to James West, a managing director at Melius Research LLC.

Voters will likely weigh current gas prices against where Trump promised they would land: pre-pandemic prices that consistently averaged under $3 a gallon, said Ryan Cummings, chief of staff at Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research and a former staff economist on the Biden administration’s Council of Economic Advisers who worked on gasoline policy.

“Really, what they’re comparing against is a $1.50 difference,” Cummings said.

The Trump administration has taken steps to reduce the impact of fuel supply disruptions from the Iran war, including controversial measures such as a diesel deal with Russia. But experts say the deal is too limited to meaningfully move prices at the pumps ahead of November’s midterm elections. The administration also invoked wartime powers on Thursday to boost fuel production in the U.S., with the Department of Energy announcing Friday that it has $150 million earmarked for investments in refineries.

One of the largest U.S. refiners, Valero Energy Corp., last week said Trump’s latest efforts to tamp down pump prices would have little impact. The Russian diesel shipments aren’t a “significant volume,” Chief Operating Officer Gary Simmons said. Valero’s Chief Executive Officer Lane Riggs noted that Trump’s plans to boost production domestically would not pay off quickly.

“Almost any refinery that’s been shut down will take a while to start up, so it would be very difficult for them to help the prompt situation,” Riggs said. “The idea that there’s these refineries that you can sort of walk in and flip the lights and they’re going to start running is not exactly the case.”

Nathan Risser, Will Kubzansky and Kevin Crowley contributed to this report.