As Americans hit the road for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, they’re getting good news at the gas pumps.
While gas prices have risen roughly 20 cents per gallon since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, according to GasBuddy, a fuel savings platform, “all 50 states are lower than last Memorial Day.”
And GasBuddy notes that gas prices are at their “lowest seasonal (Memorial Day) level since 2021.”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that when adjusted for inflation, the average U.S. retail gasoline prices going into Memorial Day weekend are 14% lower than last year, in large part because of falling crude oil prices.
FOX BUSINESS: GAS PRICES HIT 4-YEAR LOW AHEAD OF MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
As of Friday, AAA reported that the national average for regular gasoline stood at $3.20 per gallon.
And while gas prices traditionally increase heading into spring and summer, normally due to increased demand for summer travel and refineries switching to summer gasoline blends – which are less likely to evaporate but are more expensive to produce – GasBuddy expects prices to ease slightly during the next few months heading into Labor Day.
OIL PRICES ARE DOWN OVER LAST SIX MONTHS: WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR GAS PRICES?
The falling prices at the pump could be good political news for Trump and Republicans aiming to defend their Senate and House majorities in next year’s midterm elections.
“Gas prices fell for the third month in a row,” the White House spotlighted last week, as it argued, “Workers See Relief in President Trump’s Economy.”
Four months into his second tour of duty in the White House, Trump’s poll numbers are slightly underwater, with most, but not all, of the latest national surveys placing the president’s approval rating in negative territory.
That wasn’t the case when Trump was inaugurated in January, when most polls indicated his approval ratings were above water.
Contributing to the slide over the past couple of months in Trump’s overall approval ratings was his performance on the economy and, in particular, inflation, which were pressing issues that kept former President Joe Biden’s approval ratings well below water for most of his presidency.
Trump’s blockbuster tariff announcement in early April sparked a trade war with some of the nation’s top trading partners and triggered a massive sell-off in the financial markets and increased concerns about a recession.
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But the markets have rebounded, thanks in part to a truce between the U.S. and China in their tariff standoff as Trump tapped the brakes on his controversial tariff implementation.
Republican strategist Jesse Hunt told Fox News Digital that the current prices at the pump are “a positive development” and that “seeing gas prices where they are is a testament to the energy policy the administration wants to pursue, and it’s going to result in more money being kept in people’s pockets.”
But Daron Shaw, a politics professor and chair at the University of Texas who is the Republican partner on the Fox News poll, noted that “with the exception of gas prices, there hasn’t been much of a reduction in prices.”
“Prices haven’t come down, and it’s not clear that people will say the absence of inflation is an economic victory. They still feel that an appreciable portion of their money is going to pay for basic things,” Shaw added. “What Trump is realizing is that prices have to come down for him to be able to declare success.”
Hunt, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential and statewide campaigns, said that Republicans “still have to figure out a way to ease some of the strain on family budgets through everyday goods like groceries. They were able to get eggs under control, which was an issue that threatened them early on in the second administration.”
But pointing to Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts package, which narrowly passed the House on Thursday, Hunt said “there is a lot of hope and optimism” that the measure, if passed into law, “will help spur additional investment” and “will provide the sort of growth that you need across the economy.”
Fox Business’ Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.
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