Most Americans are wrong about how much gas prices have gone up.
A new POLITICO survey finds three in five Americans believe prices in their area have risen by more than they actually have. Read quickly, that looks like an opening for a president who badly needs one: the mood is worse than the data, so correct the record and the numbers should follow.
But price perception has never worked that way. And this week, reality began closing the gap from the wrong end — more than a dozen American service members now dead in the war with Iran, the president promising massive retaliation, and crude up more than 20% in a month. The polling this week explains why that combination is so dangerous for him, and why the modest summer recovery in his numbers may be the softest ground he's stood on all year.
Wrong in the Costly Direction
Start with why voters get this wrong, because the mechanism matters. People don't track averages; they anchor on the worst number they've seen recently — the highest figure on the biggest sign at the busiest intersection. Once that anchor is set, it decays slowly. Prices can flatten for weeks while the felt price stays stuck at the peak.
That same POLITICO survey finds 46% of Americans — a plurality — say gas prices will influence how they vote in November. And it won't be based on the actual price; it will be the remembered one.
The Gap Is Closing From the Wrong End
There was a version of this summer where the overestimate became Trump's cushion. Prices drift down, voters slowly notice, the gap closes from the top, and he gets credit for a recovery that was mostly arithmetic.
The war took that path off the table. Three service members were killed last weekend at a base in Jordan and in northern Iraq. The president has vowed Tehran will pay and warned that American strikes will extend to bridges and power plants. Brent crude closed Friday around $86 a barrel, up from $72 at the beginning of the month.
So the gap is closing — with reality edging toward the pessimistic perception instead of settling toward a friendlier reality. Voters who already believed prices were worse than they were are about to be made right.
Voters overestimated the damage. Now the damage is catching up to the estimate.
Fox News shows how little runway he has here. 56% of voters oppose the military action, 40% strongly. His approval on Iran has fallen to 34%, the worst on that issue he's ever recorded. And 64% now expect the fighting to last at least a year, up 13 points since May.
That last number is the one to sit with. A short war is a price spike. A long one is a line item in every household budget between now and Election Day.
The Rebound That Might Not Be One
Trump's numbers did improve in July. His standing bottomed out this spring — Michigan's consumer sentiment index hit 44.8 in May, the lowest reading in the survey's entire web-era history, below even the 2022 inflation peak — and by mid-July RMG had him at his best mark since April, with Harvard CAPS/Harris showing rural approval back in positive territory at +8. Polling averages showed his approval numbers slowly clawing back.
Two things undercut that recovery.
The first is methodological. VoteHub's analysis of its own averages concludes that much of Trump's June–July improvement reflects compositional differences — meaning the mix of pollsters in the field changed, not the mix of opinions in the country. When a few houses with friendlier methodologies publish in the same stretch, an average can rise without a single voter changing their mind. VoteHub's live average currently has him at 39/58.
The spread across this week's polls tells the same story. Civiqs puts his net approval at -21 and finds him underwater in all 50 states. Echelon has him at -22. RMG says -9. McLaughlin & Associates, a Republican firm using a three-way measure, actually has him narrowly above water at 49–47. That is an enormous range, and anyone claiming certainty about a two-point move inside it is selling something.
The second problem is what the recovery is resting on. Harvard found the reason for its own rural bounce sitting in plain sight: roughly half of voters believe the Iran-driven price increases are short-term. That belief, not any policy achievement, is holding the number up. It is a bet on the war ending quickly, placed by voters who — per Fox — increasingly expect the opposite.
Own Goal: He Keeps Adding to the Bill
The through-line in all of this is that the price pressure is substantially self-inflicted, and voters have already worked out who to hand the receipt to.
On gas, Strength in Numbers/Verasight finds 51% blame Trump and his administration for high prices — more than four times the share blaming oil companies or OPEC (12% each) — and even a plurality of Republicans point at him. Nearly six in ten say the pump has forced them to cut back elsewhere. Pew clocks worry about gas prices jumping from 34% to 56% since January, the single largest move on any issue it tracks.
On groceries, the tariffs. The Supreme Court struck down his IEEPA tariffs 6–3 back in February, and every one of them terminated that same month. He has since moved to reimpose duties under a different statute — Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — alongside 50% tariffs on most Canadian imports and a fresh round on dozens of other countries.
The legal machinery changed. The kitchen-table effect didn't. YouGov's 9,700-person survey finds 72% of Americans say the tariffs raised the prices they pay, with 46% saying "a lot." Just 3% report any savings at all. And the Washington Post/Ipsos grocery number climbed from 45% calling groceries unaffordable in February to 66% in July — a 21-point rise that ran straight through the months the original tariffs were legally dead. It reaches 56% even among households earning over $100,000.
You can survive prices the world imposed on you. Prices voters believe you chose are a different kind of trouble.
The Receipts: Prices Are Now His Worst Issue
The damage has concentrated exactly where it does the most electoral harm.
In North Carolina, High Point University finds Trump's single weakest issue is gas prices, at 24% approval — below inflation (26%), below the economy (30%), below taxes. His best marks are on border security and immigration in the mid-40s. The coalition that carried him is being tested on the one thing it can't stop thinking about.
Nationally, Fox has Democrats 9 points ahead on economic trust — their largest lead since 2006, and up from 4 points in April. Trump's economic approval there sits at 33%. In 67 battleground districts, Impact Research finds 57% disapproving of his economic handling, including 45% of non-MAGA Republicans.
And the issue is setting the agenda even where Republicans are polling well. Meeting Street Insights, another Republican firm, finds 87% of Minnesota voters say affordability will factor into their 2026 vote — 59% call it a major factor.
The Catch: The Opposition Still Can't Close
Before anyone declares this a wave, the data has a rebuttal for Democrats too.
Trump's approval is historically bad — 36% across the averaged battleground surveys, well below the roughly 45% that sank Clinton in '94, Obama in '10, and Trump himself in '18. Yet Democrats are converting only 69–76% of the voters who disapprove of him, against the 90% they captured in 2018. Republicans are holding better than 90% of his approvers. In the Iowa, Ohio, and Texas Senate races, Republicans lead or tie even with just 44% approving of Trump.
The generic ballot runs D+2 to D+7 depending on the house. VoteHub has Democrats up 5, below their 7.6-point peak in May — even as its averages flipped Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio Senate races and the Ohio governor's race into the Democratic column since April.
Record disapproval, no wave. Both things are true, and the gap between them is where this election actually lives.
This week Poll Vault tracked 32 polls on the economy alone — see them all →
Quick Hits
💸 The middle is slipping. Primerica finds 71% of middle-income Americans say their pay is falling behind the cost of living — the highest in the survey's history — and 60% have taken or are weighing a second job.
🔒 Coverage as a cage. West Health-Gallup finds 24% of workers with employer insurance — about 23 million people — are staying in jobs they want to leave just to keep coverage, up from 16% in 2021. Among those managing chronic conditions, 41%.
🏠 The ladder pulled up. Pew finds 87% say buying a home is harder for young adults than for their parents, and 80% say covering basic expenses is harder — a verdict shared by every age group.
🩺 Skipping care to make rent. 42% say inflation pushed them to skip or delay medical care this year, rising to 52% among those not yet eligible for Medicare.
Next Week
- Retaliation and the pump. The president has promised a major strike. Watch crude the morning after — that's the number that decides whether the perception gap closes gently or violently.
- Section 122 pass-through. The reimposed tariffs are still working through supply chains. Most of the price data voters are reacting to predates them.
- Whether "temporary" survives August. Half of voters believe the price spike is short-lived, and that belief is the entire foundation under his summer recovery. Back-to-school shopping is the first mass consumer test.
- The conversion gap. If Democrats are still winning only three-quarters of Trump's disapprovers by Labor Day, the story of 2026 won't be his weakness — it'll be their ceiling.
What Else We Tracked This Week
- Americans Most Pessimistic About Economy Since 2023, Blame Trump — CNBC / Hart Research
- Florida Property Tax Amendment Support Collapses When Voters Learn the Budget Impact — UNF Public Opinion Research Lab
- Three in Four Coloradans Fear They Can No Longer Afford to Stay in the State — Colorado Health Foundation
- New Jersey Mirrors National Economic Gloom, but Lower-Income Residents Bear the Brunt — Rutgers-Eagleton
- Small Business Optimism Ticks Up, but Inflation Is the Top Concern Again — NFIB
- New Yorkers' Consumer Confidence Holds Steady as the National Index Hits a 50-Year Low — Siena Research Institute
Until next time,
Alex Lundry
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