According to a new analysis by the Washington Post, Republican lawmakers are trying a new approach to how they discuss gas prices. Essentially, it comes down to insisting that, regardless of what Democrats tell you, high costs are good, actually. As Post Early Brief contributors Matthew Choi and Dan Merica note, “For years, lowering gas prices was one of the central promises of Republican campaigns. The prices of the Biden years were astronomical and ruinous, Republicans would say, caused by Democrats’ aggressive climate agenda that limited American drilling.” During the second half of Biden’s administration, one could hardly find a gas pump that didn’t have a Biden “I did that” sticker pointing to the price. But now, asserts the Post, “The tables have turned. Gas prices are approaching record highs again amid the war in Iran, and inflation is rising to the highest rate in three years on their watch. Frontline House Republicans who once campaigned on lowering the cost of gas are now either defending the high prices as necessary to counter Iran, blaming Democrats for past energy costs or avoiding the issue all together. It’s opening the door for Democrats to accuse them of hypocrisy.”The Post offers a stark example of this manipulated messaging. In a 2024 ad for Representative Michael Lawler (R-NY), he declared that “Housing, car payments, gas: The cost of everything has gone through the roof. And don’t even get me started on groceries.” But less than a month after the Iran war had prices shooting up, he told CNN that “eliminating the threat from Iran is absolutely worth it,” even if there is “short-term instability in the oil market.”Then there’s Representative Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), who in 2024 ran on a campaign that emphasized “gas, groceries and grandkids.” But lately, Van Orden has asserted the need to eliminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions at all costs — including high gas prices — posting of Democratic Governor Tony Evers, “I don’t recall you complaining when gas was $5.00 under Biden.” This is the sort of messaging that has spread throughout the GOP, and it stems from the top. Trump has asserted that high gas prices are good since the war’s beginning, saying in March, “When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.” Then on Wednesday, when asked about the latest sky-high inflation report, he shocked audiences by declaring, “I love it, the numbers were great. I love the inflation.”Whether voters will buy this is yet to be seen, but Democrats view it as a major opportunity.For example, Representative Jen Kiggans (R-VA), who is considered vulnerable in her district, has worked hard to pin the affordability crisis on Biden. But after the closure of the Hormuz Strait caused prices to leap, any mention of gas and other prices suddenly vanished from her messaging. “Kiggans is solely looking at this as a political problem for her own election. She does not actually care about the fact that the people of Hampton Roads are paying 50 percent more for gas,” former representative Elaine Luria, a Democrat running to take back her old seat from Kiggans, told the Post. Or as Rebecca Cooke, a Democrat running against Van Orden in Wisconsin, said, “He’s a huge proponent of the war in Iran. He’s losing sight of the direct correlation of gas prices and where this rise in prices is coming from. It’s delusional.”
