Gas Prices Drop Below $4 As White House Claims Victory

On Tuesday, the average cost of regular gasoline fell beneath the $4 per gallon threshold. Per NBC News, this marks the first occasion since July 20 that prices have remained under this level. A week prior, the average was significantly higher.

Monday's figure was $4.0093, while Sunday saw $4.0203. The previous Monday, motorists paid $4.1694 per gallon. One month back, the expense stood at $4.3718. These figures illustrate a distinct decline over just a few days.

Last week, crude oil futures tumbled 13%. According to NBC News, this represented the largest single-week percentage decline for the global Brent benchmark since April 2020. Prices dipped an additional 5% on Monday, reaching their lowest level since August 31. On Tuesday, they momentarily dropped below $90 per barrel.

The downward trend began after Trump told NBC News last week that he would not launch an attack on Iran. As reported by the Washington Examiner, Trump posted on Truth Social in mid-October asserting that Iran was aiming to "drive up the price of Oil prior to the U.S. Midterm Election,".

A White House official informed the Washington Examiner that the market shift confirms previous warnings. The official cited GasBuddy data regarding recent improvements. They also gave credit to the armed forces. "Thanks to the exceptional work of the U.S. military, more oil is now flowing out of the Persian Gulf than before the Iran conflict began," the White House official said.

Even with the recent decrease, gasoline costs remain high relative to pre-conflict levels. Since the war with Iran commenced on February 28, prices have risen by over 30%, according to NBC News. Additionally, they are approximately 40% higher than at the start of the year. Vice President JD Vance stated on social media Wednesday morning, "The reason we lost is the war." He further noted that "any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there," as reported by NBC News.

One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.

So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."

Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.

There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.

But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.

Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:

1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel

Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)

In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.

The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.

If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.

But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.

I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 4, 2026

Strategists at ING observed that political shifts would impact future financing. "Given the Democrats' control of Congress, there will likely be more scrutiny over the war, while funding it could become more difficult," they wrote in a note. They also cautioned, "The outcome of the elections means there could be more pushback from the Republican Party, too."