WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) marked seven months since the start of the U.S. war on Iran with a two-sentence post on X on Monday. In it she placed responsibility for rising fuel costs on congressional Republicans. The post came as gasoline prices sit near $4.50 a gallon, diesel prices are at records, and the midterm elections are less than six weeks away.
The Post
Baldwin published the statement at 1:10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. In its entirety, it reads:
“Today marks 7 months of Trump’s war in Iran. That’s 7 months of Republicans choosing to raise your gas prices.”
The seven-month mark falls exactly on the calendar date the conflict began. Operation Epic Fury began on Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran. The opening salvo killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and set off hundreds of retaliatory Iranian missiles and thousands of drones across the Middle East. The war has since become the defining national security and economic issue of the fall campaign.
The Numbers Behind the Claim
Fuel costs are the economic pressure point Baldwin’s post targets. Regular gasoline is up about 52% since the start of the war, to roughly $4.48 a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, while diesel is up 71% over the same period. Before the war, gasoline averaged just under $3 a gallon and diesel was under $4. Diesel now averages above $6.50 nationally and has reached $7 to $8 a gallon in some states.
The price increases trace largely to the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane that carries about a fifth of the world’s crude oil. A Congressional Budget Office report found the war added 2.3 percentage points to the annualized inflation rate of 5.3% in the second quarter of 2026. White House spokesman Kush Desai said the administration has been clear about temporary disruptions from the conflict and remains focused on the president’s long-term economic agenda.
Baldwin’s Record on the War
Baldwin’s post follows months of official action on the same theme. In late March, she joined colleagues in a letter to the president pressing the administration over its decision to ease sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil exports, and over what the senators called a lack of planning for the war’s economic fallout. The letter noted that U.S. crude had risen more than 40 percent and gasoline by more than a dollar per gallon since the war began.
On April 22, Baldwin forced a Senate vote on her own War Powers Resolution to end the conflict. The vote came as the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was set to expire, the Strait of Hormuz was again closed, and U.S. servicemembers had recently boarded and seized an Iranian ship. “This entire war has been unnecessary, illegal, and unwise,” Baldwin said at the time. The vote was one in a series forced by Baldwin and Sens. Cory Booker, Tim Kaine, Chris Murphy, Adam Schiff and Tammy Duckworth.
Baldwin most recently addressed the issue on the Senate floor on Sept. 24, ahead of another war powers vote. Her office said she made the case that the war must end immediately and recounted her travels across Wisconsin, where families, manufacturers, small businesses and farmers described rising costs. Nearly all Senate Republicans voted against the measure for the 13th time. Her office noted that the Pentagon had estimated the war has cost taxpayers more than $45 billion, and that Wisconsin’s average diesel price had reached a record above $6.60 a gallon.
The same release said Baldwin had questioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on a lack of preparedness that she said contributed to injuries and deaths among servicemembers, and on the war’s effects on Wisconsin families and farmers.
Republicans Begin to Split
The price pressure has begun to change the posture of some Republicans in competitive races. Sens. Jon Husted of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine, along with Rep. Ashley Hinson, Iowa’s Republican Senate nominee, have increasingly called for the war to end. The same report noted that Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska told the president diesel prices are “too damn high.” Husted’s office said his comments reflected what he has said for seven months: that the operation should be brief and successful so gas prices can fall
The shift has not translated into votes in every case. Husted has voted against every war powers resolution that reached the Senate floor. Hinson said in a social media post that the war “needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end,” less than a week after voting against a resolution to halt operations. Former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee in Michigan, also called for the war to end quickly.
Public opinion has moved in the same direction. A CNN/SSRS poll conducted Sept. 16-17 found 33% of Americans approve of the president’s job performance. Seventy-three percent disapprove of his handling of the war, and the same share disapprove of his handling of the economy.
Diplomacy Remains Stalled
Diplomatic efforts have not brought the strait back to normal operation. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi proposed reopening the Strait of Hormuz and resuming nuclear talks with the United States, at a time when Hormuz shipping traffic had fallen to just nine vessel transits. President Trump said Saturday he had rejected the latest proposal. Trump has said he expects talks to resume this week.
The war’s course has repeatedly moved between fighting and negotiation. A memorandum to end the war was signed June 17, lifting a dual blockade, and the two sides agreed to stop exchanging attacks on June 28. The ceasefire collapsed July 8 after Iran attacked commercial vessels in the strait to assert sovereignty over the waterway.
The Midterm Stakes
The political stakes are visible in prediction markets. As of Monday, Polymarket assigned Democrats a 93% chance of winning the House in the 2026 midterms. The market is scheduled to resolve around Jan. 4, 2027. Prediction markets reflect trader sentiment at a given moment, not a forecast guarantee, and prices can move with new polls and events.
Rising fuel costs also complicate the affordability message Republicans have used for years. Trump campaigned in 2024 on reversing the gas price surge under his predecessor, promising in a speech to “drive down prices and make America affordable again.” With the election weeks away, Baldwin’s two-sentence post ties that promise directly to the war and to the Republicans who have voted repeatedly to let it continue.