Falling Gas Prices Won't Save Democrats Losing Key Senate Races

Utah, Arizona and Nevada have a few things in common. All are largely arid places, dominated by rural expanses with dense urban pockets where the majority of people live. All three are also contentious politically, home to some of the most closely contested statewide campaigns in the nation this year. And all three rank among the nation's most expensive places to purchase a gallon of gasoline, an issue that has largely come to define the 2022 midterm election cycle.

In Utah on Thursday, gas prices remained upward of $4.21 per gallon. In Arizona—where gas prices have proven a particularly salient talking point—the price of a gallon of gas remained persistently high at $4.42, according to gas prices compiled by the American Automobile Association. And in Nevada, prices remained stuck at more than $5.14 a gallon, making the state one of the most expensive in the country—and ripe for Republican attacks on gas prices.

"Under Democrat rule, the price of gas in Nevada is up 100 percent," former President Donald Trump said at a recent rally in Nevada for Republican Adam Laxalt, who has a genuine chance of unseating Democratic U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto in November. "Two years ago, everything was so good in our country, and now, it's going to pieces. It's falling apart. You now have gasoline, $5 today, $5.54 a gallon."

Democrats, meanwhile, have had little help fighting the narrative in the states that matter most.

As concerns of a recession loom ahead, oil markets—and by association, gas prices—have begun to fall. In Nevada and Arizona, week-over-week prices were down 19 and 12 cents, respectively, as President Joe Biden's administration has sought to place the blame of high prices on oil producers amid its own three-pronged initiative to drive prices down even further.

"If your narrative is that gas prices are rising, well, your narrative is out of date," White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain tweeted Thursday.

Whether the change is enough to save their candidates in battleground races around the country, however, is another story.

When looking at prices month-over-month, Utah's gas prices have fallen by just 1 cent, and are more than 50 cents higher than they were this time last year.

Even with falling prices in Nevada, gas prices are still 22 cents higher than they were a month ago, more than $1.20 per gallon since last fall. And in Arizona, the month-over-month increase is nearly 50 cents from what it was a month ago.

In practical terms, this matters quite a bit. Polling analyzed by The Washington Post found Biden's approval rating almost directly correlates with the price of gas. A 2016 paper by political scientists Laurel Harbridge, Jon Krosnick and Jeffrey Wooldridge found a similar trend, finding that each 10 cent increase in a gallon of gasoline typically resulted in a roughly half-a-percent decrease in the sitting president's approval rating. Meanwhile, conservative pollsters like Rasmussen have rated gas prices—and inflation writ large—as one of the most important topics facing voters this fall.

However, others say the connection between gas prices and public opinion appears to be getting weaker.

Both former President Barack Obama and Trump maintained consistent approval and disapproval ratings throughout their terms, which both featured spikes in gas prices that had little bearing on the final result of either the midterms or general election during their terms. Biden's approval notably went up at the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and, again, during the summer, when gas prices remained stubbornly high in many parts of the country.

Industry analysts have said with increasing frequency that high gas prices are something politicians have little influence over. And as the Harbridge/Krosnick/Wooldridge paper notes, studies over the years have determined few Americans credit or blame the government for changes in their own personal economic circumstances, but instead use their judgments about the national economy to shape their political opinions.

If the polls are proven accurate, individual perceptions of high gas prices and their importance are likely to define how voters in swing states react. And it likely won't be in Democrats' favor.

"Ideally, voters would be making their choice about who to vote for, or whether to vote at all, based on those and other issues that politicians can actually do something about," Hugh Jackson, a Las Vegas columnist, wrote in a piece for the Nevada Current on Thursday. "But if the polling is to be believed, voters will base their choice on the price of gas instead."