By Nathan Layne
BRIGHTON, Michigan, April 22 (Reuters) - Tom Barrett tapped into voter frustration over high gas prices as part of his successful 2024 run for Congress in Michigan. Now the Republican is on the defensive on that same issue as Democrats see an opportunity to flip his seat.
"Gas in Michigan is four bucks a gallon," Barrett said as he filmed himself filling up his tank at a gas station in August 2023. "When I'm elected to Congress, we'll produce our own energy. We'll get gas under control
so that this will be a lot more affordable for families like yours and families like mine."
Nearly three years after he posted that video to social media, average gas prices in Michigan are back near the same level, briefly topping $4 in early April before settling around $3.80 this week, up 27% since the Iran war began on February 28.
The surge has put Republicans who campaigned against high fuel costs under Democratic President Joe Biden on the defensive heading into November’s midterm elections, with control of the House at stake and the Senate potentially in play.
The vulnerability is especially acute for Barrett, who represents one of the country's most competitive districts as a U.S. congressman and is already facing Democratic attacks on the issue.
In an interview with Reuters, Barrett acknowledged that gasoline prices were squeezing his constituents' finances but said the war was justified on national security grounds and expressed hope that prices would fall.
"Gas is an issue that affects people's livelihoods, the affordability of things ... I'm not dismissing any of that," he said after the opening of a new campaign office in Brighton, a small city 45 miles west of Detroit. "But that doesn't mean gas is going to be the same price on Election Day as it is today."
That optimism has been undercut by both President Donald Trump and his energy secretary, Chris Wright, who have acknowledged that gasoline prices could remain high through Election Day.
FEW GOOD OPTIONS
Republicans across the country are grappling with how to campaign amid high gas prices after weaponizing the issue during the Biden years, when prices peaked above $5 a gallon in June 2022 as Russia's war on Ukraine provoked a sharp rise in global energy prices. The recent rise in gas prices has exacerbated Republicans' woes heading into the election, with Americans already disgruntled by high food and property prices as well as healthcare costs.
For many Republican candidates, the rise in gasoline prices has upended a central campaign strategy. They still plan to focus November's elections on Trump’s sweeping 2025 tax bill, but the higher fuel costs have made it harder for them to sell the promised relief to Americans squeezed by everyday expenses.
One strategist working for a Republican in a competitive House race said that candidates must back Trump and the war during party primaries that attract more conservative supporters but may have to break with him in the November general election.
"When the campaign focus becomes independent voters, soft Republicans, folks like that, then Republican candidates may be forced to be critical of the president," said the strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
DEMOCRATS TURN TABLES ON REPUBLICANS
Gas was not the sole focus of Barrett’s 2024 campaign, but he repeatedly returned to the issue as part of a pledge to fight inflation under Biden. A 22-year U.S. Army veteran, Barrett won the district by nearly four percentage points, outperforming Trump's one-point win in the presidential election the same year.
In late July 2024, for example, Barrett posted photos on X of gas price signs from four different stations, all hovering around $4 a gallon.
Now, Democrats see gas prices as a potent weapon in their effort to flip Barrett's predominantly white district, which is centered on Lansing and stretches across farmland and small towns, and east toward the outer edge of the Detroit metro area.
On April 13, local Democrats, farmers and activists gathered at a gas station outside Lansing to protest high fuel and fertilizer prices and call for an end to the war. "Tom Barrett + Iran War and We Pay," read the sign carried by one protester. "Got Gas Pains? Vote Democrat for Relief," read another.
Bridget Brink, the Democrat who has raised the most money so far ahead of her party's August primary, said if she won the Democratic nomination she would hammer Barrett on his support for the war and the resulting spike in gas prices.
Brink, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under Biden, said any relief from new tax breaks on tips, Social Security benefits, and overtime pay in Trump's 2025 tax bill was being outweighed by rising gas prices.
"When Republicans say they're cutting your taxes, all of that gets lost in bigger prices on gas, healthcare, groceries, and housing," she said. "We’ll be talking about gas prices every week, because we all see it and feel it."
BARRETT CREATES SOME DISTANCE FROM TRUMP
Earlier this month, Barrett criticized Trump's threat to destroy Iran’s "whole civilization" as an affront to human dignity.
Yet Barrett voted against a congressional resolution to limit Trump’s war powers and says he supports efforts to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, arguing that current high gas prices stem from a justified foreign-policy choice, unlike a Biden-era spike he blames on limits on domestic oil production.
After a Reuters reporter mentioned interviewing a constituent who could afford to put only $14 of gas into her car, Barrett redirected the conversation to national security, repeatedly asking whether she had been questioned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Did you ask her if she thought Iran should develop a nuclear weapon?” Barrett asked.
Reuters did not ask the constituent, Danielle Lewis, about Iran's nuclear capabilities but discussed the war's impact on gas prices. Lewis, 39, said she liked Barrett and would likely vote for him in November.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos polling shows that only 36% of Americans support the war in Iran.
Beyond the war, Barrett's campaign office opening offered a glimpse of Republicans’ midterm pitch. The congressman promoted the 2025 tax bill, stressing the benefits of an expanded child tax credit, while another House member, Lisa McLain, previewed attack lines for the crowd.
"I think we make this election a contrast election between normal and crazy, because they are crazy,” said McLain, casting Democrats’ positions on transgender rights and other cultural issues as liabilities.
Neither Barrett nor McLain mentioned gas prices in their remarks.
Democrat Christine Waugh‑Fleischmann, who spends up to $200 a week on gas for drives to see her grandchildren, said after discussions with Republican friends about inflation she believes the district can be flipped.
"I do see a lot of people in my conservative neighborhood here who are very upset," said the 70-year-old art teacher, as she filled her SUV at the same Quality Dairy gasoline station in Charlotte, Michigan where Barrett made his 2023 social media post.
"It's gas. It's grocery prices, it's healthcare costs."
Alexander Melton, 38, an HVAC technician, said he still planned to vote for Barrett despite higher gas prices that have raised his costs, saying the Republican better aligned with his conservative values.
However, he does see a cautionary lesson from the 2024 election for all politicians campaigning on high gas prices.
"We don’t dictate the price of gas. We’re getting it from overseas, and at this point now we’re at the mercy of everybody else,” Melton said.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Michigan; Additional reporting by Jason Lange in Washington, Editing by Ross Colvin and Andrea Ricci )
