President Donald Trump campaigned on cheap gas prices but costs are now higher than during the Biden administration, according to new federal data.
With a week to go until the midterm elections, Americans have paid $3.74 on average for a gallon of unleaded gas during Trump’s second term. Under President Joe Biden, it was $3.69, according to price data from the Federal Reserve.
“It’s pretty astonishing,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at price-tracking site GasBuddy told CNN Monday. “I don’t think anyone would have predicted this 10 months ago.”
At the start of 2026, the U.S. was enjoying gas under $3 a gallon. After Trump started the Iran war in late February, affordable gas prices evaporated. Oil shipping slowed, causing gas to soar past $4 in March for the first time since the Biden presidency.
Voters are deeply unhappy about it - 73 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of gas prices, according to a poll Wednesday by the New York Times and Siena University. Yet the president seems numb to those concerns, telling a rally last week that he “doesn’t give a damn” and that consumers are paying less for gas than they did under Biden.
Trump’s lack of sympathy over gas prices is having an impact not only on how voters view his handling of that issue but on cost of living as a whole.
Just 17 percent of voters approve of the way the president is managing cost-of-living, and 26 percent say they’re happy with the way he’s handled the economy, according to an AP-NORC poll in October.
Even some who have voted for the president in past elections are frustrated with how expensive life has become in his second term, including three-time Trump voter Bethany Lnenicka, 41, who operates a small farm in Fairfax, Iowa.
“Groceries are just like kind of out of control. It seems like everything is going up,” Lnenicka said. “It’s just one thing and the next week it’s another thing. It’s just insane. And of course your income doesn’t go up.”
Earlier this month, gas prices broke a record by remaining above $4 a gallon for 158 consecutive days, according to an October 14 X post from De Haan.
The Trump administration has taken steps to lower prices over the past few months, including increasing U.S. diesel production, offering tax breaks on a key type of commercial diesel fuel, and temporarily rolling back environmental regulations on certain types of gasoline.
Since reaching an average of $4.65 in May, unleaded gas prices fell to $4.20 in August and ticked up to $4.48 in September, according to federal data.
With additional reporting from The Associated Press
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