Michigan GOP candidates blame $4 gas prices on incumbent Dems as swing state races heat up
DEXTER, Mich. – Rising prices at the pump in Michigan will have major implications this November for Vice President Kamala Harris, where the swing state’s House, Senate, and presidential elections are still in a dead heat since her rise to the top of the ticket.
As of publication, the average price of gas in Michigan is $3.74 per gallon – that’s 25 cents higher than the national average, per The Auto Club Group, or AAA.
Michigan is a must-win state for Kamala Harris, and her record is anchored to the Biden Administration.
That’s bad news for Harris, since Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline and banned energy leases on federal land, contributing to surging national gas prices up to 50% higher than before he took office.
And there are other factors affecting the climbing cost of gas.
“Refinery issues in Joliet, Illinois, alongside higher gasoline demand, have led to an increase in gas prices across the upper Midwest,” said AAA Spokeswoman Adrienne Woodland.
Mike Rogers, the Trump-endorsed GOP candidate for Senate in Michigan, took aim at his Democrat opponent, Rep. Elissa Slotkin in a tweet, tying her to VP Harris’ energy policies – and the nearly $4 per gallon price tag at the pump.
“I’m not sure we can survive $3.99 a gallon going forward. The Harris-Slotkin agenda moving forward on gas prices is only going to make that worse,” Rogers said in front of a Michigan gas station.
GOP congressional candidate Tom Barrett also tweeted out high prices at the pump to point fingers at his Democrat opponent Curtis Hertel Jr., who he’s challenging in Michigan’s 7th District.
“My opponent, @CurtisHertelJr, supported a 45-cent gas tax increase. We can’t afford Hertel or Harris in Washington. Working families, like mine, are already paying enough under Biden’s economy,” he tweeted.
The 45 cent gas tax increase that Barrett referenced was intended to fund road repairs in Michigan, but did not pass the GOP-controlled legislature in 2019.
“Curtis Hertel not only endorsed it, but introduced to the legislature a budget that would have incorporated that 45-cent tax increase,” said Barrett in a jab at his congressional opponent, who served in the Michigan State Senate when the bill was introduced.
Tom Barrett also has voted to raise taxes on gas in the past, but he says that the increase he voted for was not as much as the tax increase that Hertel proposed.
“He’s gonna attack me because we adjusted the gas tax ten years ago when I was in the state legislature,” Barrett told The Post.
“It hadn’t been adjusted in the legislature in something like 20 years, so we made a modest adjustment to the state gas tax to account for that,” Barrett continued, defending his record.
As a disciple of the “drill baby, drill” philosophy, Barrett believes the solution to high gas prices is to exploit US domestic oil reserves.
“They’ve closed off pipelines. They have made it extremely difficult for new oil and gas leases on federal lands to continue to flourish, to be able to produce an abundance of energy here in our country. So the downstream effect of that complicated by a drop in refining capacity has made it such that gas continues to go up in price,” Barrett told The Post.
Michigan is a key swing state for Harris to reach 270 electoral college votes – so if high gas prices drive voters into the arms of the GOP, her blue wall strategy may well be cooked.
In late May, when Biden was still in the race, economist Mark Zandi predicted that gas prices would determine the winner of the election.
“If national prices fall towards $3 a gallon by election day, President Joe Biden should win re-election,” Zandi forecasted, before adding a warning.
“However, if pump prices rise to more than $4, former President Donald Trump should prevail.”
