Texas voters on high gas prices under Trump: ‘Probably made me go more Democrat’

A gas station in Houston earlier this month. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenA gas station in Houston earlier this month. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty ImagesUS midterm elections 2026Texas voters on high gas prices under Trump: ‘Probably made me go more Democrat’In state where driving is part of life, president’s pledge to lower prices at the pumps cuts little ice

Behind the granite countertops of Fuel City, a gas station in Dallas where taxidermy deer flank the entrance and hot tacos are served 24/7, Alina Cardenas sees first-hand that Texans are stretched thin.

Drivers are filling up less, she said, while ringing people up for cigarettes and beer, and fewer people are buying a full tank. Some stop once they’ve reached $10 or $20 worth of gasoline.

Cardenas, 19, who is studying radiology at a local college, said she’s been cutting back on gas herself by staying home more and driving only to go to work and school.

In a state nearly three times the size of the UK, with hundreds of thousands of miles of road, driving is an essential part of life. Commuters can spend as much as six hours a day on the road going to and from their jobs. Over much of the past year, soaring energy costs brought on by the war in Iran has made it all the more expensive.

Higher gas prices are expected to play a major role in how Texas voters will decide a key battle in the upcoming midterms. James Talarico, a state representative, is trying to best Republican Ken Paxton, a former state attorney general, to become the state’s first Democratic senator in over 30 years.

View image in fullscreenA sign with ‘Gas Prices Are Too Damn High’ written on it. Photograph: Gaya Gupta/The GuardianRepublicans across the country are fighting an uphill battle against widespread frustration, especially among independent voters, over the economy. Recent polling shows Talarico with a slight edge over Paxton, who has been embroiled in scandals.

On Tuesday, a week before election day, Donald Trump stood in front of an oil tanker docked in Corpus Christi, Texas to announce that the first million barrels of oil from his deal with Venezuela had arrived in the state.

“We’re celebrating the greatest oil victory in history,” Trump said at a rally for Paxton in Lubbock later that day.

At another rally in Georgia later in the week, Trump touted the “hundreds of billions of dollars” that higher gas prices are bringing to American gas companies. Two of the largest, Exxon and Chevron, are based in Texas.

But in Texas, voters seem unconvinced. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where bumper stickers declaring “my country, not your church” speed past billboards for gun shows, drivers who spoke to the Guardian expressed deep frustration over gas prices.

Cardenas said inflated gas prices has “probably made me go more Democrat” and that she will vote for Talarico.