We’ve been winding our way through key American battleground states for an action-packed midterms road trip, and there’s one thing at the top of the agenda: gas prices.
And no, I’m not just talking about the petrol-guzzling RV motorhome GB News toured the country in.
In perhaps one of the most consequential elections in US political history, will Americans be able to sympathise with Trump for his war in Iran when they head to the polls on Tuesday?
Because that’s what I argue it all boils down to. Average gas prices across America were around $3 a gallon before President Trump sent those beautiful yet deadly B-2 Spirit Stealth Bombers to Iran on February 28.
The offensive dubbed Operation Epic Fury saw dozens of 2,000 guided bombs dropped on key Iranian targets belonging to the Islamist despot regime. The Iranians, tens of thousands of whom were slaughtered by the regime just weeks earlier, celebrated and thanked Trump for his intervention.
Wrestling control of the energy pinch-point Strait of Hormuz has proved the trickier challenge since then.
As a result, the Trump administration is now focused on Operation Save The Midterms.
Because diesel prices across the US now average more than $6 a pop – double what they were just eight months ago. And that’s even after they’ve fallen in recent weeks, having been much higher over the summer.
Translated to UK prices, that’s only around £1.15 per litre of diesel. Still far below the current extortionate record-high of £2 a litre for diesel back home. We’d no doubt be celebrating such a decline.
But this is America we’re talking about. An energy-rich nation that is far more reliant on low gas prices than we are in the UK. What we’d celebrate back home is proving a cause for frustration and anger across the Atlantic.
High diesel prices hurt farmers and transporters. That affects the cost of groceries in the supermarket. And then consumers are walloped at the tills and at the gas pumps. Combined with inflation still ticking higher than when Trump took office in January 2025, the nation is feeling the pinch.
One Republican voter stopped to speak with me outside a Walmart in Butler, Pennsylvania, where President Trump narrowly escaped with his life in 2024 after his first assassination attempt, in which a bullet grazed his ear.
They said: “Not much has changed for me compared to two years ago. I’m Maga, I’m still with Trump, but the war needs to end soon. I have a truck to fill up and the gas prices are crippling.”
Just how soon is soon? Chances are the United States will probably start a new intervention in Cuba before activity in the Middle East finishes. But Americans are patriots, they love their country and care about national security.
“What Trump did in Iran had to be done,” said the baseball-capped dog owner pushing a shopping trolley.
“No other president had the nerve to do it. It needed doing. It’s painful. I drive a diesel so the prices are quite high. But it needed doing.”
The Republicans’ fortunes on Tuesday will depend largely on just how forgiving fellow voters are across the nation.
How representative is that man of the wider American public? Will Trump’s loyal voters from 2024 forgive or at least understand the rationale for going into Iran and spiking gas prices?
From an outsider’s perspective, you have to ask yourself why Trump would have started a conflict with Iran, knowing gas prices would spike, during an all-important midterm election year, KNOWING that it could heavily scupper the final two years of his presidency.
If it wasn’t that urgent, if it wasn’t so important, why would he do that? Maybe the truth, after all, is that Iran was indeed weeks away from securing a nuclear weapon.
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What Americans are voting for
The picture looks uncertain, but it’s key for Republicans to keep control of at least the Senate even if they lose the House.
For understanding, US Congress is divided into two chambers: the House of Representatives (435 seats, all elected every two years) and the Senate (100 seats, with staggered six-year terms).
Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the House with 218 seats to the Democrats’ 214, while in the Senate they hold 53 seats to a 47-seat Democratic bloc.
On Tuesday, Senate and House seats are up for grabs – plus a load of tantalising state governor races.
The House originates spending and tax bills and can impeach officials, while the Senate confirms presidential appointments (including judges and cabinet members), ratifies treaties, and can filibuster most legislation.
For Republicans under President Trump, retaining the Senate is especially important: it protects their ability to confirm judges and executive nominees without Democratic obstruction, and even a 50-50 split would still give them the majority via Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote. Losing it would hand Democrats the power to block key appointments and investigations for the rest of Trump’s term.
The key races
Pennsylvania governor
The first stop of our GB News road trip saw us land in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The city itself is a Democrat stronghold, with the council last having Republican control more than 100 years ago.
A blue-collar, classic Rust Belt steel town that spent a century as America’s industrial powerhouse before collapsing in the 1970s and 80s. Today, it’s reinvented itself as a tech and healthcare hotspot built around its universities and hospitals.
There’s no Senate race in Pennsylvania this time around, but the governor race between Democrat star Josh Shapiro and his Republican state treasurer rival Stacy Garrity is the headliner.
Shapiro is a likely presidential candidate for 2028, while Garrity is a fierce Trump ally who previously said the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was rigged.
Shapiro has around a 20-point lead over Garrity, and it looks like the incumbent governor will keep his seat.
Ohio governor
Another exciting governor race comes next door in Ohio, a classic Midwestern swing state with a deep industrial and agricultural history. This Rust Belt powerhouse is still politically pivotal, as we found when rocking up in its capital, Columbus.
Trump ally and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy contests the governorship in a clash with Democrat rival Amy Acton.
This race has been full of controversy, not least because of a Ramaswamy attack ad against Acton that featured her estranged mother, who called her daughter a compulsive liar who fibbed about her background and past. She urges Ohians: “Do not vote for my daughter.”
Acton has been estranged from her mother since age 12, when she says she and her brother left her family home because her mother’s husband was sexually abusing her.
Further proof that politics is a dirty, dirty, game.
Ramaswamy meanwhile caused his own controversy in 2025 when he said Indian workers were harder grafters than white Americans – and American culture was too focused on hanging out at the mall on weekends rather than learning computer science or technology.
Ramaswamy’s comments saw him booted out of the White House team, where he was due to work alongside Elon Musk on Doge.
This weekend gone, Ramaswamy warns socialism could come to Ohio in fiery midterm pitch: ‘Common sense over communism.’
Polling has shown Amy Acton with a three- to four-point lead over Ramaswamy heading into election day.
Ohio Senate
This is the biggie for the Republicans. Republican runner John Husted, who Trump bizarrely in recent weeks has praised for having a nice and “muscular” backside, is up against Democrat rival Sherrod Brown.
This is a Senate seat the Democrats likely need to win to secure a Senate majority.
Incumbent Husted is new to the job after taking JD Vance’s Senate seat when he became Vice President.
Brown leads polls by around five points.
Michigan Senate
We rolled into Michigan, home of car giant Ford, for perhaps the most recognisable Senate race of them all. Far-left Democrat runner Abdul El-Sayed versus Republican rival Mike Rogers.
El-Sayed represents a new wave of candidates who are dragging the Dems further to the left. Trump calls him a jihadist, phoney, extremist and terrorist sympathiser. Why? A few things.
El Sayed’s half-sister once claimed on Facebook that their biological mother worked with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1970s. He also associates himself with American-hating communist Hasan Piker, the anti-capitalist anarchist who said America deserved 9/11 and he wanted to see the blood of landlords fill the streets.
In March this year, Michigan saw the horrific Temple of Israel synagogue attack, committed by an Islamist despot whose brother died fighting for Hezbollah against the IDF in Lebanon.
The attacker was armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and drove a truck into the Jewish temple, which was also home to a preschool full of 100 children. He died after exchanging fire with a security guard. Nobody else was killed.
Senate candidate El-Sayed caused huge controversy when he said after: “Hurt people… try to hurt people.”
He later apologised for the comments.
But the truth is, the remarks probably rallied his Michigan base. The city of Dearborn is the first-ever Arab majority city in the United States. It’s also home to the largest mosque in the US. And now El-Sayed could become the first-ever Muslim senator of the US.
Polls show he has a slight lead over Rogers. But House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted a Republican upset when appearing beside his colleague in the state on Saturday.
“I’m telling you, the polls are wrong, okay? We’re going to defy history and we are going to be celebrating big victories on Tuesday night,” Johnson told supporters.
Texas Senate
Hold on to your Stetson hats. Republican Ken Paxton vs. Democrat James Talarico in an unexpectedly competitive contest in a deep-red state that’s rated toss-up by several pollsters.
Paxton arrives with a long trail of controversy. As Texas attorney general he has been impeached by his own party’s House (only to be acquitted by the Senate), faced multiple indictments over securities fraud and bribery allegations. Talarico calls him the most corrupt politician in Texas.
Meanwhile, there’s a reason Donald Trump calls the young Democrat ’James Talafreako’. And he’s arguably the worst proposition for God-fearing Texans.
In 2001, during a speech opposing a bill that banned biological men from women’s sports, Talarico said God was “non-binary.”
In 2021, he called himself a “Christian who hates Christianity.”
In 2020, he said: “White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus of racism, but we spread it wherever we go.”
And he described Jesus as a “radical feminist” during a church sermon defending abortion rights in 2022.
Fox News Power Rankings have the Texas Senate race tied at 49% apiece. Texas is a high-stakes race that could help tip the balance of overall Senate control, but it is not decisive by itself.
My Senate predictions
Americans are fed up with high gas prices, and some find it a struggle to let Trump off the hook for bombing Iran. But they are at least understanding of the president’s reasoning.
And the alternative? Well, Democrat candidates who are best described as unconventional – and that’s being generous.
I’m quite sure the US will crown its first-ever Muslim senator with El-Sayed winning his race in Michigan, though I’m convinced the dead-heat polls in Texas are over-egging support for James Talarico.
John Husted will win in Ohio, while the Republicans will win in Iowa, Maine, Kansas and Alaska.
The Democrats will take North Carolina, Georgia, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
I predict a narrow overall Senate majority win for the Republicans or a 50-50 split, which would be broken by the crucial vote from Vice President JD Vance.
Follow GB News for all the latest coverage and analysis of the 2026 midterms, including American Decides 2026 LIVE from midnight on Tuesday.
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