By Brad Brooks
WIGGINS, Colorado, May 16 (Reuters) - Perched behind the cash register at Stubs liquor store, Amy Van Duyn gazed out the window at a red-and-green gasoline price sign, which she said seemed to tick up daily.
The price was $4.34 per gallon - about 50% higher than it was in these parts when President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year.
"I used to fill my tank for $36," said Van Duyn, 42. "Now $36 gets me half a tank."
Her co-worker Tonyah Bruyette said when it's time to buy
groceries, she's left wondering where all her money went: "We're putting it in the tank rather than on our table."
Like most people in and around Wiggins, a farming town of 1,400 people in northeast Colorado, Van Duyn and Bruyette remain ardent supporters of the president, who won surrounding Morgan County by 49 percentage points in 2024.
Nationally, Trump’s political fortunes appear to be waning. His war with Iran has sent fuel prices soaring past $4.50 a gallon nationwide, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found nearly 8 in 10 Americans hold the president responsible for higher gasoline prices.
Trump was asked this week if people's economic woes were motivating him to reach a deal with Tehran. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation," he responded. “The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon."
Democrats seized on the comments as evidence of an administration losing touch with an anxious public. Only 30% of U.S. adults approved of Trump's handling of the economy as of a May Reuters/Ipsos poll, an issue that had long been one of his political strengths.
But in two dozen recent interviews along Colorado’s Highway 52 -- a two-lane blacktop road punctuated by grain elevators, feedlots and oil pumpjacks -- Trump voters echoed the president's logic.
Across Morgan and Weld counties, which haven't voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1964, voters were willing to pay more for gas if it meant eliminating a possible Iranian nuclear threat. Energy prices had also spiked under President Joe Biden, many said.
Some begrudgingly stood by Trump because of their distaste for Democrats; others expressed faith the president had a plan to bring costs down. It was a testament to the durable, personal bond Trump has built with his base, allowing him to weather multiple crises across his two terms.
"It feels like he hears us," said Bruyette, "that he is fighting for us."
'WILLING TO SACRIFICE'
About 25 miles southwest of Wiggins, Jim Miller was elbows-deep in the engine of his ailing Dodge pickup.
A 65-year-old retired commodities broker raised in the liberal city of Boulder who now lives in tiny Prospect Valley, Miller considers himself “half-hippie, half-cowboy.”
He said enduring the momentary pain of high gas prices was worth preventing Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Miller recalled stories of American resilience during World War II, when goods were rationed and households lived with less.
"I struggle, like everybody else does, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little," Miller said. "That's been totally lost in this country, people's willingness to sacrifice."
In the unincorporated town of Roggen was Mike Urbanowicz, a 66-year-old trader with multiple college degrees whose farming cooperative moves 150 truckloads of grain each day.
He voted three times for Trump, but like many interviewed by Reuters, he considers himself a political independent, saying he distrusts the Republican Party nearly as much as their Democratic foes.
Gas prices were hurting his industry, he said, and Trump was “naive” to think he could quickly solve the issue. He expected prices would remain high into the fall, even if there was a breakthrough in stalled U.S.-Iran peace talks.
But he preferred the status quo to Democrats, whom he saw as moving towards "full-blown socialism."
"I voted for Trump because the alternative is so bad," he said.
'ALL ON BOARD'
In Fort Morgan, Lexys Siebrands, 22, lay prone on a table inside the Bad Medicine Inkporium tattoo parlor, smiling through the pain in her left calf, where there were images of a wanted poster, a stagecoach and other Western-themed designs.
A gay woman who recently found Christianity, Siebrands once considered herself a Democrat, but started to think of herself as a Republican around 2022 -- citing what she called the hypocrisy of liberals around identity politics -- and voted for Trump.
She saw war with Iran as inevitable. "Something was going to happen eventually, whether it was Iran doing something to us or us doing it to them."
Sitting next to her daughter was 49-year-old Jyl Siebrands. She grew up as a political independent but later gravitated towards Republicans.
She said she hated high gas prices, but feared the prospect of a nuclear-armed Tehran even more. “It's just where we are with this war," she said. "People just have to give it time."
Did she have any red lines? Anything that might shake her faith in Trump's handling of the war or the economy?
"No," she said. "I'm all on board."
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Jesse Mesner-Hage and David Gaffen;)
