Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a statewide disaster on Monday, citing a sharp rise in diesel prices and a deepening fuel shortage, as the war with Iran passed its seven-month mark. The move highlights a widening political problem for Republicans: fuel costs tied in part to the conflict are adding to voter concerns about affordability before the midterm elections, even in states where the party has recently won by large margins.

Diesel prices have risen across the United States since the war began in late February. The national average is now about $6.45 a gallon, compared with $3.76 when the conflict began, according to AAA data. Several other states have recently taken steps to reduce the cost of gasoline and diesel as the war continues.

Republican candidates are spending money and political capital to defend seats they won easily in recent elections. Brian Darling, a Republican strategist and former counsel to Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said the war is hurting the party even in states where it is dominant.

“The Iran War is proving to be a drag on Republicans, even in solidly Republican states,” Darling told Responsible Statecraft in an email. He said inflation, partly caused by the war, is pushing independent voters toward Democratic candidates.

“These states are exposed to the consequences of the Iran War because the candidates are not distancing themselves, nor providing an off ramp, to President Trump on ending the war,” Darling added.

In Texas, two polls conducted in September showed Abbott trailing Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa for the first time in the race. Emerson, the only polling firm in The New York Times’ tracker to survey voters both before and after the war began, recorded a five-point shift toward Hinojosa.

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election forecaster, has moved Senate races in five states toward Democrats since August: Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Georgia and South Carolina. Some of those contests are still considered likely Republican holds. Texas, Iowa and Ohio, all states President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024, are now rated toss-ups by Cook.

Trump added Nebraska to his midterm speaking tour this week. He carried the state by more than 20 points in 2024, but independent polling there is limited and the Senate race appears to be tightening. Dan Osborn, a populist independent challenger, has been a vocal critic of the war.

The conflict itself is broadly unpopular, giving Republicans another reason to worry about its political effects. Analysts say, however, that voters appear to be registering the economic consequences more clearly than the war itself. The impact of fuel prices may be especially significant in Republican territory, where rural voters often drive longer distances and local economies rely heavily on farming, trucking and other fuel-intensive industries, according to Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at The University of Texas at Austin.

The war is not the only factor behind higher costs. Political columnist Peter Roff told Responsible Statecraft that the conflict’s economic effects have been overstated, pointing to lingering inflation and other structural causes of persistently high fuel prices. He acknowledged that voters may not be persuaded by those distinctions when they see prices rise at the pump.

Republicans in close races have increasingly tried to distance themselves from the war’s economic effects, with some calling for the conflict to end, as Jack Hunter wrote in Responsible Statecraft last week. Their public criticism has not yet translated into votes to curb Trump’s authority to wage war. Most Republican lawmakers have continued to support him when given opportunities to limit that authority.

Only five Republican senators have supported any of 14 legislative efforts to restrict Trump’s ability to wage war without congressional approval. Of those five, only Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is up for re-election in November. Two of the five are already due to leave the Senate in January.

Luke Nicastro, a senior editor at The American Conservative, argued last week that Republicans outside the five senators who are now talking about affordability hope voters will overlook their failure to vote against the war, which he said is driving up gas and grocery prices. Whether that approach works may depend on voters separating the affordability debate from the conflict as they head to the polls.

“Those Republican candidates are in a jam because they only have a few weeks to engage in intense electoral cognitive therapy to get these voters to compartmentalize their reality,” Charles McElwee, an editor at RealClearPolitics, told Responsible Statecraft.

Democrats have focused on the gap between Republican candidates’ affordability messages and their records on the war. In September, the party’s Senate campaign arm issued a release listing past statements and votes in support of the conflict by 13 Republican Senate nominees, including candidates in Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas.

“Despite national backlash, nearly every Senate Republican, including those in tight races in key Senate battleground states, just voted to continue the price-hiking war in Iran,” the release said. It added that the vote “comes after GOP Senate candidates shamelessly and desperately scrambled to paper over their extensive records supporting, advocating for, and defending the unpopular war.”

Some candidates have shifted their language quickly. Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican Senate nominee in Iowa, recently said her constituents “shouldn’t have to foot the bill” for the war. As recently as last month, she described it as “out of sight, out of mind for so many Americans” because it is “thousands of miles away.”

Democratic candidates have taken different approaches to linking the war to household costs. Some explicitly connect the conflict to the economy, while others focus on affordability without making the war central to their campaigns. In South Carolina, where the Senate seat was vacated by the late Lindsey Graham, Democrat Annie Andrews trails Darline Nordone Graham, the late senator’s sister, by 2.5 points in the RealClearPolling average. Andrews has spoken more about gasoline and diesel prices and criticized Graham once for not voting to invoke war powers during her brief time in office.

The remaining weeks before election day leave little room for Republican candidates to recover if costs keep rising. Experts expect prices for goods such as diesel to remain elevated even if the war winds down. Darling said progress toward a negotiated agreement “would give hope to many that there is a plan to get diesel prices down.”

He said continued increases would deepen the political pressure. “Every gas station in America posts the current price of gas,” Darling added, “and that is a daily advertisement on the progress President Trump is making to resolve the Iran War.”

Based on reporting by Responsible Statecraft.