In the final days of the 2022 midterm election cycle, President Biden and the members of his party appearing on ballots have been scrambling to cobble together a case to shore up Democrat voters and try to win over independents. But Biden's angry, divisive speeches and displayed ignorance of the crises facing Americans haven't been working. Now, in a handful of key states set to determine the balance of power in Congress, one of those crises is again rearing its head: gas prices.
Biden and his spokespeople have tried to convince Americans that gas prices are going down — a clever half truth of sorts that's true only if looking at a small slice of Biden's time in office but false compared to where gas prices were when he took office.
Now, with just a few days left before Election Day, even Biden's recent claim that fuel prices are going down has been debunked. According to AAA, the national average for a price of unleaded stands at $3.778, trending up from Wednesday and the average one week ago. In some critical states, prices are rising even more drastically as Americans fill up their tanks in the final stretch of the midterms.
In Pennsylvania, The York Dispatch noted this week how, "[a]fter dropping following a summertime spike, Pennsylvania gas prices have been creeping back up in recent weeks." AAA lists the Keystone State average price at $4.008, up from last week's $3.932 and from last month's $3.769. Diesel in PA has jumped as well, currently $6.031 up from $4.996 one month ago.
A similar upward trend is happening in Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is facing a challenge from Democrat Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes. The state average for regular unleaded is currently $3.749/gallon, jumping ten cents from $3.643 yesterday. Last week gas in WI was running at an average of $3.571/gallon.
The battleground state of Ohio is also seeing gas prices spike in the final days of the contest between Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican nominee J.D. Vance. As of Thursday, the average price is $3.863, up from Wednesday's $3.822 and last week's $3.642.
While GOP nominee Don Bolduc sees a late polling surge against Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, the average gas price sits at $3.728, up from $3.571 one week ago and $3.383 one month ago.
Meanwhile, down in Florida where Sen. Marco Rubio is being challenged for his seat by Democrat Rep. Val Demings, gas is now $3.435, up from $3.385 on Wednesday. One week ago gas in the Sunshine State was more than ten cents cheaper at $3.320 and one month ago it was just $3.221.
The price increases in these key midterm states come roughly one week after the White House began floating the prospect of Biden tapping even more supply from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that he's already drained to its lowest inventory since April 1984.
This is so egregious - they're tapping the SPR SPECIFICALLY to postpone gas price pain until after the midterms.
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 27, 2022
The "he will use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a responsible fashion" ship sailed over a year ago. https://t.co/rouPvkibdZ
But as is normal with the "Democrats in disarray" routine, this apparently political decision to try keeping prices from increasing — after Democrats' so-called "green" energy transition killed off American energy independence — is just more scrambling to try and stem the red wave that's coming next week to the detriment of America's emergency backup supply of crude oil. It's also an abuse of Biden's authority to tap into the SPR to help his political party at the expense of the country's readiness and ability to respond to an actual crisis not of Biden's creation.
Biden's actions have been so drastic — again, in response to the energy chaos Biden's policies have wrought — that the SPR has been drained from its January 2021 level of more than 638 million barrels of oil to just 399.8 million barrels at the end of October 2022.
In January 2021, the month Biden took office, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve held some 638 million barrels of crude oil.
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) November 3, 2022
The SPR ended October 2022 with 399,800,000 barrels, the lowest level of reserves since April 1984. pic.twitter.com/0MTtwhBLpS
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