What do polls say about the 2026 midterms?

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, completed October 26, put Trump’s approval at 32% and showed Democrats ahead on the generic ballot, 47% to 36%. Prediction markets implied roughly a 92% chance of a Democratic House and 60% to 63% for the Senate, though these are market probabilities, not forecasts.

Rubio in Jamnagar: Venezuelan Oil, $4 Gas and the Iran War — What It All Means for Trump Before the Midterms

Q: Will Venezuelan oil lower US gas prices?

Not by itself and not quickly. Rubio acknowledged Venezuelan crude would not offset serious supply disruptions elsewhere, though higher output could offer short-term relief. The Strait of Hormuz is the dominant factor in current prices.

Q: How does the Iran war affect the election?

The war has pushed oil prices higher and kept gasoline above $4 a gallon. Polling shows large majorities assign Trump at least some responsibility for the price surge, while Republicans argue the strikes were necessary and point to Democratic energy policy.

Updated October 29, 2026 | Reading time: about 20 minutes

On October 21, 2026, the United States Secretary of State walked into the largest single-site oil refinery on Earth. Marco Rubio’s tour of Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar complex in Gujarat, India, looked like an unusual stop for a diplomat. But the timing tells the story: gasoline prices in America have been stuck above $4 a gallon since late July, Brent crude is trading around $113 to $116 a barrel, the war with Iran is now eight months old, and voters head to the polls in the November 3 midterm elections less than a week from now.

Put those facts side by side and Jamnagar stops looking odd. It starts looking like a piece of an energy-security puzzle that the Trump administration badly needs to solve, and quickly. This article breaks down what Rubio did in India, why Venezuelan crude is at the center of it, how the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz keep pushing prices up, and what all of it could mean for President Trump, his party and the midterm elections.

One clarification up front, because the question comes up constantly: Trump is not on the ballot on November 3. What is at stake is control of the House and Senate, which decides how much of his agenda survives his last two years in office. That makes the midterms a referendum on his handling of the economy and the war, and gas prices are the most visible scorecard.

Key Takeaways

The visit: Rubio met India’s foreign minister in Mumbai on October 20, then toured Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery on October 21 and met chairman Mukesh Ambani.
The pitch: Washington wants India to refine more Venezuelan crude and buy less Russian oil, while Reliance builds a refinery in Brownsville, Texas.
The limit: Rubio himself said Venezuelan oil alone would not offset supply disruptions elsewhere. The Strait of Hormuz is the bigger variable.
The pain: AAA’s national average for regular gasoline was about $4.29 on October 25, with September setting a record monthly average of $4.33 for that month.
The politics: Reuters/Ipsos polling puts Trump’s approval at 31% to 32%, with Democrats leading the generic ballot by 11 to 12 points. Structural factors like redistricting and the Senate map complicate the picture.

What Marco Rubio Actually Did in India

Rubio’s trip ran October 20 to 21 and was his second India visit this year. Two details stood out right away. First, he skipped New Delhi. Instead of the capital, he went to Mumbai, India’s commercial hub, and then to Jamnagar. A US official described the approach as “commercial diplomacy,” centered on the long-running India-US trade agreement, energy and investment. Second, the itinerary created friction at home in India, with Al Jazeera reporting that the decision to bypass the capital had ruffled feathers, and Indian media noting a political storm after the US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, said Washington expected the foreign minister to travel to meet Rubio.

In Mumbai on Tuesday, Rubio held talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. He also met representatives of three of India’s biggest business groups: the Tatas, the Adanis and Reliance. According to The Diplomat, the two sides discussed stepping up energy cooperation and increasing Indian purchases of American technology and weapons systems. Indian analyst Brahma Chellaney summed up the choice of cities as a signal that Washington wants to emphasize pragmatic cooperation rather than diplomatic friction.

On Wednesday, October 21, Rubio arrived in Jamnagar. People familiar with the visit told ThePrint that he toured the refining complex, the Vantara wildlife rescue and conservation center, and Reliance’s emerging clean-energy manufacturing hub, accompanied by his wife, Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio. Reports also said the Ambani family hosted a reception for him. Before landing, he told reporters in Mumbai that he would raise the idea of Reliance refining more Venezuelan crude, and that India could help boost global supplies as Venezuelan output grows. He called India a “refining superpower” and pointed to existing oil concessions held by Indian companies in Venezuela that might help increase production.

The trip also came with a trade backdrop. Jaishankar said earlier in October that talks on a bilateral trade agreement were nearing a “landing point,” with a few issues still unresolved. Those unresolved issues largely come down to two things: American tariffs and India’s continued purchases of Russian oil.

Why Jamnagar Matters: The World’s Refining Heavyweight

To understand why a Secretary of State would spend a day at a refinery, you need to understand the facility. The Jamnagar complex, owned by Reliance Industries and opened in 1999, is generally described as the world’s largest single-site refinery. Reliance says its crude processing capacity is about 1.4 million barrels per day across two sites, and the export-focused portion accounts for roughly half of that.

Size is only part of the story. Jamnagar is a highly complex refinery, which means it can process a wide range of crude grades, including heavy, sour crude that simpler refineries cannot handle economically. That matters for Venezuela, whose output is mostly heavy oil. Reporting around the visit noted that India is one of the few places in the world equipped to refine Venezuelan heavy crude at scale, which is exactly why Washington sees Jamnagar as a natural home for it.

The facility also sits at the center of the Russian-oil controversy. Reliance was the world’s top buyer of Russian crude for most of 2024 and 2025, according to Kpler data cited by Business Standard, and Russian barrels made up more than 40% of Jamnagar’s imports in the first eleven months of 2025. After the US sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil, Reliance said it would stop processing Russian oil at its export-focused unit, which lets that part of the plant keep supplying fuel to Europe under new European sanctions rules. Some Russian cargoes bought earlier continued to be delivered to the part of the complex serving India’s domestic market. In other words, Jamnagar is both a pressure point and a potential solution in US energy strategy.

The Venezuelan Oil Strategy: What Washington Is Trying to Do

The Venezuelan piece of this story has changed dramatically in 2026. According to Al Jazeera, US forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January and effectively took control of the country’s oil industry. Since then, the US government has marketed Venezuelan crude to buyers abroad. Washington’s goal is straightforward: bring more barrels to a market starved of supply by the Iran war, and steer those barrels toward refiners that can process them.

Venezuela sits on enormous reserves. OPEC figures cited by Indian outlet Down To Earth put them at about 303 billion barrels, roughly 18% of the world’s proven total. Yet production earlier this year was only around one million barrels a day, a fraction of the 3.5 million it pumped at its late-1990s peak, in part because pipelines and other infrastructure have gone decades without upgrades. Trump said at Mar-a-Lago that US oil majors would go in and spend billions to fix the broken infrastructure. Rebuilding takes years, not weeks.

Reliance is already deeply involved. Business Standard reported that Reliance is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude after the United States itself, and most of that oil goes to Jamnagar. Reuters, via Gulf Times, noted that Reliance is a significant importer but is not active inside Venezuela as a producer, which is part of what Rubio wanted to discuss. Bloomberg reported that India’s imports of Venezuelan oil surged in October to their highest level in almost seven years, helped by steep discounts while Russian supplies became more expensive.

The Brownsville, Texas Refinery

The other half of the Reliance relationship runs in the opposite direction. In March, Trump announced a Reliance-backed refinery project in Brownsville, Texas, hailing it as part of a $300 billion investment. The project is being developed by America First Refining. ThePrint reported a planned capacity of 168,000 barrels per day, and several outlets describe it as the first new refinery built in the US in roughly 50 years. Rubio highlighted it as an opportunity to expand American energy production and create jobs.

For readers who follow the economics, note the scale gap: a 168,000-barrel refinery is a small fraction of Jamnagar’s 1.4 million barrels per day. The Texas project is a political and strategic symbol as much as a supply fix. It lets the administration tell a “reciprocal investment” story: India refines our Venezuelan and American crude, and an Indian company builds capacity on American soil.

Rubio’s Own Caveat

The most important sentence of the entire trip may be one the administration did not emphasize. According to the Associated Press, Rubio acknowledged that Venezuelan oil alone would not offset potential supply disruptions elsewhere, though higher production could provide some short-term relief. That is a candid admission. Before the war, about 17.1 million barrels of oil per day moved through the Strait of Hormuz on average, according to Kpler figures reported by Al Jazeera. No near-term Venezuelan increase, even an optimistic one, can fill a hole of that size.

The Russia Problem and the India Trade Deal

Any honest reading of the Jamnagar visit has to include the awkward part: the United States is simultaneously pressuring India to cut Russian oil purchases and easing some pressure on Russian oil buyers when prices spike. Just days before Rubio landed in Mumbai, Bloomberg reported (via Gulf Times) that Trump waived potential sanctions on the world’s top buyers of Russian oil, a group that includes India. Rubio confirmed in Mumbai that the administration remains concerned about Indian purchases of Russian crude, which have declined under US pressure but remain large. One conservative outlet, Breitbart, noted India is still Russia’s second-largest oil customer after China.

That tension reflects a harder reality. With Hormuz flows disrupted, Washington cannot afford to remove Russian barrels from the market entirely without pushing prices higher still. The administration’s preferred answer is substitution: Venezuelan barrels instead of Russian ones. Indian refiners appear to like the economics, since Venezuelan crude has come at steep discounts. But substitution does not add much total supply. It reshuffles who buys what.

On the diplomatic side, relations between the two countries have been strained mainly by Trump’s tariffs and the Russian oil issue, as Al Jazeera put it. Rubio’s decision to meet in Mumbai rather than New Delhi, and to put business leaders and energy at the top of his agenda, looks like an attempt to rebuild goodwill through commerce while the trade deal is finalized.

The Iran War and the Strait of Hormuz: Why Oil Is Back Above $110

Everything above sits inside a larger energy shock. The US-Israel war on Iran began on February 28, 2026. Before the conflict, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas moved through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has used its control over that waterway as its strongest bargaining chip, and shipping through it has remained well below normal for most of the war.

A Timeline of Whiplash

Oil’s path this year has been violent in both directions. Brent crude rose from about $72 before the war to a peak near $118 in late March, according to the Wikipedia article on the fuel crisis. A ceasefire was announced on April 8, and Brent sank to around $70 by July 1, then rebounded above $100 by late July and traded between $87 and $97 through August. Throughout the spring, Trump repeatedly suggested a settlement was near, only for fighting or tensions to resume, a pattern noted by multiple outlets including AFP-sourced reporting.

October brought the sharpest deterioration in months. The Washington Post reported on October 8 that Iran had hit at least nine vessels in a single week, just after the administration celebrated that naval operations had pushed oil flows back near pre-war levels. Kpler data cited by Al Jazeera showed that around 20.8 million barrels passed through the strait on October 8, but only about 2.9 million on October 11. Yahoo Finance’s October 27 analysis counted more than 30 maritime incidents in and around Hormuz in October, up from 14 in September.

Prices responded. Brent closed at $104.28 on October 8 after Iran stepped up tanker attacks and a hurricane threatened Gulf of Mexico production, with about 500,000 barrels per day shut in. By mid-October Brent was touching $110, and on October 27 it was hovering around $113 to $116, according to CBS News and Yahoo Finance. Al Jazeera reported Brent had surged above $117 the previous week.

Trump’s Pre-Election Pledge and Why Markets Doubted It

On October 8, Trump said the United States would not resume airstrikes on Iran before the midterms. NBC News reported that the pledge failed to reverse a sharp jump in oil prices that day. The market logic is easy to follow: a promise to hold off until November 3 implies the risk of renewed strikes afterward. Yahoo Finance’s October 27 piece said oil markets are counting down to the election with expectations of hostilities rising into November, even as Qatar and Pakistan try to mediate and Brent is temporarily capped near $115. On October 26, senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan held talks with Iran in an effort to prevent the war from reigniting, according to CBS News.

Iran, for its part, says it is willing to negotiate and has presented a proposal. Al Jazeera reported Iran’s claim that the US accepted some of its seven conditions for reopening Hormuz and ending the war, but that Washington’s response was insufficient. Iran has also said it wants to keep control of shipping and charge fees, which the US rejects. Layered on top is a separate Saudi-Houthi conflict that is gaining momentum and adds to regional risk.

The war has also carried a fiscal price. CBS News cited a new estimate that it has cost the US military at least $47.1 billion as of mid-October.

What It Means at the Pump: Gas Prices in Late October 2026

Americans do not buy Brent crude; they buy gasoline. Here is where pump prices stand according to AAA data and news reports:

October 1: national average of $4.41 for regular.
October 8: $4.36, still the highest ever recorded for that time of year.
October 15: $4.33, with AAA noting that crude was nearing $100 again.
October 25: about $4.29.

AAA said September’s monthly average was $4.33, a full 50 cents above the previous September record. It also noted this is the first year the national average has stayed above $4 in October, that the average has been above $4 since late July, and that it is more than a dollar higher than at the same point last year. Regional swings can be sharper: AAA Michigan reported that prices there jumped 32 cents in a week, with Detroit averaging $4.89.

There is a technical reason pump prices drifted slightly lower in early October even as crude rose. Summer-blend gasoline rules ended in mid-September, and winter-blend fuel is cheaper to make. Retail prices also lag wholesale prices by roughly one to two weeks, which means the October crude spike may not have fully reached pumps yet. Online prediction markets on gasoline prices reflected that uncertainty, with traders treating a drop below $4 by election week as unlikely. Those are crowd estimates, not forecasts, so treat them as sentiment rather than science.

The pump price is where the politics become personal. Reuters/Ipsos found earlier this year that 77% of registered voters said Trump bears at least a fair amount of responsibility for the gasoline price surge, including 55% of Republicans and 82% of independents, and that 58% of voters said they would be less likely to back candidates who support his approach to the Iran conflict. Trump has repeatedly said prices will fall when the war ends, though analysts have cautioned that relief would likely not be quick.

The Midterm Scoreboard: What the Polls Say

Now to the question that brought many readers here: how does this affect Trump in the election? Start with the numbers.

Approval and the Generic Ballot

A Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed October 19 found Trump’s approval at 31%, the lowest level in either of his terms, with Americans worried about gasoline prices. The same poll showed Democrats leading Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 47% to 35%, a 12-point advantage that was the widest of this election cycle. Some 68% of respondents disapproved of his handling of the economy, including 37% of self-identified Republicans, and Democrats were preferred over Republicans as better economic managers by 40% to 33%.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, completed October 26, showed a small bounce: approval at 32% and the generic ballot at 47% to 36%, an 11-point Democratic lead. The poll also found that 73% of voters say their cost of living is heading in the wrong direction, and that Democrats are more enthusiastic about voting, with 46% saying they are very enthusiastic compared with 30% of Republicans. Enthusiasm gaps matter enormously in midterms, where turnout is far lower than in presidential years.

What Prediction Markets Imply

Market prices are not forecasts, but they capture collective judgment. WION reported in October that Kalshi and Polymarket prices implied roughly a 92% chance of Democrats winning the House and about 60% to 63% for the Senate. That marks a big shift from February, when Republicans entered the year with a more favorable environment and Democrats led the generic ballot by a more modest 7 points in an Economist/YouGov survey.

The Structural Case for Republicans

It would be a mistake to read polls as the whole story. There are real reasons the outcome might be closer than headline numbers suggest, and a fair analysis has to include them.

Redistricting. A Cook Political Report analysis by Dave Wasserman, reported in July, estimated that new maps drawn after Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw districts give the GOP roughly a 12-seat advantage compared with the 2024 lines. That is a cushion Democrats must overcome. Cook publisher Amy Walter had earlier argued such gains were unlikely to fully offset losses in a bad environment, and noted that in 2018 Republicans lost 40 House seats, so the outcome depends on how large the national swing is.
The Senate map. Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats. The 2026 map was widely viewed as favorable to Republicans, and Senate races tend to turn more on candidates than on national referendums, though polling this year has pulled several GOP-held seats into contention.
Loyalty among Republican voters. AP-NORC polling earlier in the year showed roughly three-quarters of Republicans approving of Trump’s handling of the presidency and about 70% approving his handling of Iran. Quinnipiac found about eight in ten Republican voters believed the war would make the world safer. If Republican voters hold, losses may be smaller than overall approval suggests.
The “prices fall” hope. Republican strategists have said that if the Iran situation resolves and gas prices come down, the party has a decent shot. With days left, that window has mostly closed for this election.
Polling error. Surveys can miss in either direction, and likely-voter models differ from registered-voter samples.

The Case Democrats Make

Democratic strategists point to the opposite evidence. The president’s party has lost House seats in the vast majority of midterms in modern history. Record retirements hit Republicans harder: a Quorum tracker as of March counted 36 House Republicans leaving versus 22 Democrats, beating the single-party record of 34 Republican retirements set in 2018, the cycle that preceded a 40-seat Democratic wave. Prices are tangible, high and visible every day, and polls show a majority of Americans, including some Republicans, attribute them to the war. They also note Republican candidates in tight races have begun breaking with Trump on some issues, with NBC News reporting that Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton privately blamed the Iran war for high prices.

How Rubio’s Jamnagar Diplomacy Connects to the Election

Does a refinery tour in Gujarat move the needle for voters in Michigan or Pennsylvania? Almost certainly not directly, and not before November 3. Here is the realistic chain of logic.

Channel 1: Global Supply

If Indian refiners process more Venezuelan heavy crude, and displace barrels that would otherwise compete for the same limited supply of Middle Eastern or Russian grades, the global market gets slightly less tight at the margin. That could shave something off crude prices over months. The effect is limited by Venezuela’s infrastructure constraints and by Rubio’s own acknowledgment that it cannot offset big disruptions.

Channel 2: Narrative and Messaging

The administration can credibly say it is working every angle: Venezuelan barrels, American refining capacity in Texas, trade deals that open Indian markets, and negotiations through mediators in Qatar and Pakistan. In a campaign closing, that is useful messaging. The risk is that voters judge by the pump, not by the press release. Pump prices are what 73% of voters in Reuters/Ipsos polling feel when they say the cost of living is moving the wrong way.

Channel 3: Foreign-Policy Credibility

The India outreach attempts to repair a relationship strained by tariffs. A finalized US-India trade agreement, which Jaishankar says is near a landing point, would give the administration something to point to as a win. But trade deals rarely register with voters the way gasoline does, and the timing makes it unlikely to matter on Election Day.

Channel 4: The Contradictions

Critics will point to inconsistencies: pushing India off Russian oil while waiving sanctions on Russian-oil buyers; promising lower prices at the end of the war while the war continues; saying there will be no strikes before the election while markets price in escalation afterward. Whether those contradictions matter depends on whether voters notice and care, which in turn depends on prices.

Three Scenarios for the Next Few Weeks

Because this story is moving fast, it helps to think in scenarios rather than predictions. These are frameworks, not forecasts.

Scenario 1: Quiet Through Election Day

No major strikes, mediation continues, Hormuz attacks plateau. Brent holds near its current range and pump prices drift in the low-to-mid $4 range. This is closest to the base case implied by Trump’s pledge. Voters still see $4-plus gasoline, so the political damage is largely already priced in, but there is no fresh shock.

Scenario 2: Escalation Before November 3

Attacks on tankers intensify or a major incident occurs, sending Brent well above $120. Wholesale prices spike, and retail follows within a week or two. Republicans would face a final-week energy shock. Even a late move can matter because of the lag between crude and pump prices, but with early voting already underway in many states, a good share of ballots would be cast before it hit.

Scenario 3: A Deal or Credible De-Escalation

A framework agreement on Hormuz or a broader ceasefire could drop crude quickly, as happened in the spring when Brent fell from near $118 to about $70 by July 1. Markets move faster than pumps, so retail relief would lag. Politically, it would help Trump’s narrative that the war is ending, though perhaps too late to change many votes, and the history of repeated near-deals followed by renewed fighting makes markets skeptical.

After November 3: What the Results Could Mean for Trump

Whatever happens at the pump, the result will shape Trump’s final two years.

If Democrats win the House: they would control committee gavels, investigations and the power of the purse. With the war costing an estimated $47 billion or more, spending oversight and war-powers fights are plausible flashpoints. Republicans would lose much of their ability to pass legislation without Democratic votes.
If Democrats also win the Senate: confirmations of judges and officials would become much harder, and the administration’s room to maneuver on foreign policy would narrow further.
If Republicans hold both chambers: Trump will read it as a vindication of his approach, and the war and energy strategy would continue with little legislative check.
The 2028 factor: midterm outcomes also shape the Republican field for the next presidential cycle. A poor showing would intensify the debate inside the party about distancing itself from the war and the tariff agenda, while a strong one would cement Trump’s control.

The Investor Angle: What This Means for Markets

For readers of this blog, the interesting question is how an election-week energy story ripples through portfolios. A few themes worth tracking, none of them recommendations:

Oil-price sensitivity. Energy producers generally benefit from elevated crude, while airlines, trucking and consumer-discretionary companies absorb higher fuel costs. With Brent more than 50% above pre-war levels, margins across fuel-intensive industries are under pressure.
Refining margins. Complex refiners that can process heavy, discounted crude can capture wider spreads. That is the economic logic behind the Jamnagar-Venezuela relationship, and behind Reliance’s importance.
Event risk after the election. Oil markets are explicitly pricing a risk of escalation after November 3. That points to elevated volatility around the election and the weeks after.
Inflation and rates. Gasoline feeds directly into headline inflation and consumer sentiment. Sustained high energy prices complicate the Federal Reserve’s task and can pressure household spending.
Policy outcomes. A divided Congress would change expectations for fiscal policy, tariffs and sanctions. Markets tend to dislike uncertainty, but divided government is sometimes read as a brake on dramatic policy swings.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial or investment advice. Commodity and equity markets are volatile, and you should consult a licensed advisor before making decisions.

What to Watch in the Final Days

Hormuz tanker traffic: daily transit data and attack counts are the best real-time signal for crude.
Mediation headlines: talks involving Qatar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey with Tehran.
AAA’s daily national average: whether it stays near $4.29 or begins climbing as October crude works through to retail.
Final polls: the Reuters/Ipsos generic ballot, and whether Democratic enthusiasm leads translate to early-vote turnout.
India-US trade announcements: any finalization of the trade deal and any Reliance commitments on Venezuelan crude or the Texas refinery.
Post-election signals: statements from the administration on whether strikes against Iran resume after November 3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Marco Rubio visit the Jamnagar refinery?

Rubio toured Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar complex on October 21, 2026 because it is the world’s largest single-site refinery and one of the few facilities able to process large volumes of Venezuelan heavy crude. Washington wants India to refine more Venezuelan oil, reduce reliance on Russian crude, and deepen ties with Reliance, which is backing a refinery project in Brownsville, Texas.

How much oil can the Jamnagar refinery process?

Reliance says the Jamnagar refining complex has a crude processing capacity of about 1.4 million barrels per day across its two sites.

Will Venezuelan oil lower US gas prices?

Not by itself, and not quickly. Rubio acknowledged that Venezuelan crude would not offset serious supply disruptions elsewhere, though rising output could offer some short-term relief. The Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG moved before the war, is the dominant factor in current prices.

What is the national average gas price right now?

AAA’s national average for regular gasoline was about $4.29 per gallon on October 25, 2026, down from $4.41 on October 1. Prices have stayed above $4 since late July and are more than a dollar higher than a year ago.

Is Trump on the ballot in the 2026 midterms?

No. The November 3, 2026 midterms decide control of Congress, including the entire House and 35 Senate seats. Because midterms are often treated as a referendum on the sitting president, Trump’s approval rating and the economy, especially gas prices, are widely seen as influencing the outcome.

What do polls say about the midterms?

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, completed October 26, put Trump’s approval at 32% and showed Democrats ahead on the generic ballot, 47% to 36%. Prediction markets in October implied roughly a 92% chance of a Democratic House and about 60% to 63% for the Senate. Those are market-based probabilities, not forecasts, and redistricting and polling error add uncertainty.

How does the Iran war affect the election?

The war has pushed oil prices higher and helped keep gasoline above $4 a gallon. Reuters/Ipsos polling found large majorities of voters assign Trump at least some responsibility for the price surge and that many would be less likely to back candidates who support his Iran approach. Republicans counter that the strikes were necessary and point to Democratic energy policy, and Republican voters have been more supportive of the war than the public overall.

Bottom Line

Rubio’s trip to Jamnagar was smart energy diplomacy aimed at a real problem: how to move more barrels toward the markets that need them and align India more closely with US energy goals. It also underlined the limits of the administration’s toolkit. Venezuelan crude, Texas refining and trade deals are medium-term plays. The thing that determines the price at the pump this week is the Strait of Hormuz, and that depends on a war the administration has not been able to end.

For Trump, the political equation is stark. His approval sits in the low 30s in Reuters/Ipsos polling, voters broadly connect gasoline prices to his decisions, and Democrats hold double-digit leads on the generic ballot. Against that, Republicans have structural advantages from redistricting and a favorable Senate map, and midterm outcomes can surprise. The one thing nearly everyone agrees on is that energy will shape the final days of the campaign, and that the weeks after November 3 may bring the next major turn in both the Iran war and the oil market.

We will keep updating this analysis as new data on oil, gasoline and polling arrives. Subscribe to Insider Fusion for ongoing coverage of oil markets, geopolitics and what they mean for your money.

Sources and Further Reading

Disclaimer: This article is for general information and commentary only. Figures reflect publicly reported data as of October 25 to 29, 2026 and may change quickly. It is not financial, investment or legal advice.