Gasoline prices shot past $4-a-gallon across New York back in early April as President Donald Trump’s war against Iran entered its second month and global oil prices soared.
Trump had dismissed temporary pain at the pump as a “very small price to pay” for confronting a hostile regime and curbing its nuclear ambitions. But the war and the high gas prices it caused have now lasted more than five months and are looming as a potential factor in the approaching midterm elections — the Nov. 3 contests that will decide control of Congress for Trump’s last two years in office.
In New York, drivers were paying an average of $3 per gallon when American and Israeli forces began airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28. Within a few weeks, the numbers on gas station signs were climbing to alarming levels.
According to AAA figures obtained by the USA TODAY Network, New York’s average gas price crossed the $4-a-gallon mark around April 3 and reached higher than $4.50 for nearly a month, peaking at $4.61 from May 19 to May 21. The statewide average stood at $4.15 as of Tuesday, Aug. 11.
Those elevated costs are starting to add up. Over a 22-week period since the Iran war began, New Yorkers paid an average of $1.03 more per gallon than they paid during the same time period in 2025, according to federal data compiled by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. For a family using 20 gallons of gas per week, that comes to a total of about $450 in additional costs so far.
How is the issue playing out on the campaign trail?
Democrats have been on the attack for months over the war’s impact on gas prices, hammering the Republican president and Republican-led Congress for what they cast as an unnecessary cost hike for families in the midst an affordability crisis.
The party and its candidates are now carrying that message into campaign season as elections near with gas prices still high.
In a high-profile race in New York’s Hudson Valley, Democratic challenger Cait Conley is going after Republican Rep. Mike Lawler for voting five times against ordering a halt to the war, as most of his GOP colleagues did as well. Conley, an Army combat veteran and former national security official, is criticizing the war’s toll on both U.S. service members and on costs back home.
“We are nearly five months into a conflict our government never should have started,” Conley wrote on social media on July 21. “Working families in the Hudson Valley and across the country cannot afford the skyrocketing costs of gas and groceries, but that didn’t stop Mike Lawler from voting to continue the war with Iran.”
In a statement to the USA TODAY Network on Tuesday, Aug. 11, Lawler’s campaign countered that New Yorkers face “permanent” high energy costs under Democratic state leadership that will outlast a temporary spike in gas prices. Among its examples were the 2021 closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant “without any plan to replace the energy production we lost.”
Lawler campaign strategist Chris Russell charged that Conley would seek to bring New York’s energy policies to the federal level. He also pointed to a previous spike in gas prices under a Democratic president.
“While there is a recent and temporary spike in gas prices due to the war to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, they are still lower than they were during Joe Biden’s presidency when gasoline exceeded five dollars a gallon,” Russell wrote.
Conley, in a statement to the USA TODAY Network, said Trump launched a war “with no exit strategy” that had cost 18 American service members their lives and raised the prices of gas, groceries and other goods.
“Mike Lawler has voted five times to rubberstamp this reckless war of choice, as his own constituents struggle to make ends meet,” Conley said. “When I’m in Congress, I will be a check on this administration’s power and make the lives of working families easier, not harder.”
A similar clash to affix blame for high costs is playing out in New York’s governor race. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democrats are yoking her Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman, to Trump’s Iran war and tariffs and the price increases they have caused. Blakeman and Republicans are countering that Democrats are in control in Albany and responsible for New York’s high utility costs.
The race for Lawler’s 17th District seat is a key House battle this fall, one of 19 contests rated as “toss ups” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. The House Democrats’ campaign arm recently launched an internet ad in support of Conley that is targeted to Hispanic voters and focused on costs, criticizing Lawler for voting in support of both the Iran war and Trump’s tariffs.
“Lawler said it was ‘absolutely worth it,'” the ad proclaims, inserting a snippet from a CNN interview with Lawler in March about the Iran war. “Worth it? Para quien? (For whom?)”
Just 35% of Americans supported the war in a recent poll by Reuters and Ipsos. The war had cost U.S. taxpayers $37.5 billion as of July 21, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave that estimate in testimony to Congress while requesting $67 billion more to replenish U.S. weapon supplies.
How do gas prices differ around NY?
Average gas prices vary across the state, with a nearly 40-cent range between the high and low in the daily figures posted by AAA on Aug. 11.
In the Hudson Valley, the average price for a gallon of regular gas was $4.34 in Westchester County and $4.27 in Rockland County, according to AAA’s daily figures. Across the state in Monroe County, the average was $4.21. Long Island had some of the state’ lowest prices: averages of $4.05 and $4.07 in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
The last time gas prices were this high was in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine and set off a disruption in global oil supplies.
In New York at that time, gas prices — already higher than $3.40 and rising in the wake of the COVID pandemic —surged past $4 after the Russian attack and stayed at that level for about six months that year, peaking at a statewide average of $4.93 for one week that June, according to NYSERDA’s data.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA TODAY Network. Reach him at CMcKenna@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: How much Iran war gas prices are costing New Yorkers as midterms loom
Reporting by Chris McKenna, New York State Team / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Chris McKenna, New York State Team | USA TODAY Network
