US ELECTIONS: Gasoline price fluctuations could play role in 2024 presidential election

A slew of political issues is vying for prominence heading into the 2024 US presidential election, but experts say few topics cut across the decades to grab voters' attention as reliably as gasoline prices do.

While it can be hard to pin down the importance of a given issue in any election year, "we have very solid evidence that gasoline prices are going to play a role," Jon Krosnick, director of the Political Psychology Research Group at Stanford University, said.

Krosnick, alongside Laurel Harbridge and Jeffrey Wooldridge, co-authored a 2016 study called "Presidential Approval and Gas Prices" tracking gasoline prices' direct impact on a president's approval ratings. The study reviewed data from January 1976 to July 2007, filtering for other economic factors and significant news events, and found that a 10-cent increase in gasoline prices correlated with a 0.60% decrease in presidential approval.

"Low gasoline prices are a bipartisan national interest -- something both Republicans and Democrats want," said Jim Burkhard, S&P Global Commodity Insights' vice president and head of research for oil markets, energy and mobility.

"The president, regardless of party, is often seen by the public as somehow responsible for gasoline prices," Burkhard said. "The president will be blamed for high gasoline prices or take credit for low prices. The reality is gasoline prices are determined in the global oil market -- which no one controls, including the US president."

2024 in store

Retail gasoline prices appear unlikely to rise during the 2024 election season, according to a Commodity Insights forecast. However, US gasoline supplies are tight, and while refinery runs remain high, forecasters have predicted an active Atlantic hurricane season that could threaten US Gulf Coast refinery operations.

Gasoline stocks on the US Atlantic Coast were 11% below the five-year average at 56 million barrels as of June 21, US Energy Information Administration data showed. Further declines would likely support the New York-delivered NYMEX RBOB futures contract.

More recent polling history shows voters paying more attention to gasoline prices following a sudden upswing.

For instance, President Barack Obama touted his administration's efforts to boost oil and gas drilling in his 2012 reelection campaign. While his Republican opponent Mitt Romney criticized Obama for a rise in gasoline prices, the increase was not enough to sway voters. Polling firm Gallup asked 1,000 voters in August 2012 what the most important issue facing the country was, and only 1% cited energy, down from the 25% of poll respondents who cited energy as the top issue in the days before the 2008 election.

While outright gasoline prices in 2012 were lower than prices in 2008, prices in 2012 were relatively rangebound while prices in 2008 were on the rise. Spot New York Unleaded 87 octane cargo prices averaged $3.33/gal in June 2008, up $1.11 on the year, Commodity Insights data shows.

For the 2016 and 2020 election seasons, gasoline prices did not feature as prominently in the discussion: gasoline prices had fallen by the 2016 election and were especially low heading into the 2020 election as COVID travel restrictions hampered demand.

New York Unleaded 87 octane cargo prices averaged just $1.21/gal in November 2020, up from an average of just 60 cents/gal in April, according to Commodity Insights data.

Climate, competition and costs

Republicans have sought to brand President Joe Biden's Environmental Protection Agency actions, as well as his signature Inflation Reduction Act legislation, as a putative "war" against abundant domestic fossil fuels. Despite the US' record production under Biden, former president and presumptive Republican 2024 nominee Donald Trump has promised his administration would "drill, baby, drill."

Trump also reportedly asked oil executives for $1 billion in campaign contributions, offering to reverse dozens of Biden's environmental rules, among other industry-friendly policies that would allow for more drilling.

By contrast, Democrats have pointed to a non-regulatory cause for high prices: Alleged anticompetitive and coordinated output reductions between and among US crude oil producers and others, including OPEC and its allies.

Specifically, the US Federal Trade Commission said in May that former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield had previously campaigned to organize concerted production cuts. Sheffield's attorneys have pushed back on those claims.

On May 31, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and 23 Democrats called on the US Justice Department to open an investigation into potential antitrust violations. A week earlier, 13 Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee urged chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) to open a committee-led investigation, saying the allegations provide a "different explanation" for gasoline prices.

Biden's actions

Biden's approach to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has demonstrated a keen awareness of the public's relationship to gasoline prices.

In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which caused petroleum prices to rally, Biden authorized the US Department of Energy in March 2022 to sell 180 million barrels of crude from the SPR. Republicans have criticized the move as politically motivated and risky. While the DOE has steadily repurchased crude in 2023 and 2024 -- for an average price of $78/b, lower than the roughly $95/b it sold for in 2022 -- the SPR currently holds 370.5 million barrels, down from the 638.5 million barrels it contained when Biden was inaugurated.

White House senior adviser John Podesta in spring 2024 hinted the DOE could sell more barrels to lower prices. In response, two Republicans, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, sent a joint letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm urging her to prevent further SPR releases in an election year.

"We urge you, in the strongest terms, to put this country's energy security first and stop abusing the SPR for political purposes," McMorris Rodgers and Barrasso wrote.

The administration will continue its refill strategy, White House energy adviser Amos Hochstein said in June, but added that the administration could still release SPR crude in 2024 to keep gasoline prices low.

Will it matter?

Whether voters will care about these partisan arguments, or even notice them, remains to be seen.

Voters may be uniquely able to make up their own minds about gasoline prices. The 2016 study found that effects on presidential approval were visible separate from the media coverage of those prices, suggesting gasoline was a relatively unique good whose costs were obvious from the direct daily experience of driving past signs. Still, research has typically found that US voters are broadly more concerned about the overall state of the country. "Gasoline prices affect everybody," Krosnick said.

In 2022, a Data for Progress analysis found Biden's disapproval rating to be strongly correlated with gasoline prices, but more recent tracking suggests that correlation has weakened later in his tenure, particularly since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Gasoline prices dovetail with other economic concerns, like inflation and unemployment, which are blended with how voters feel about the overall direction of the country, Krosnick said.

"What drives people's votes is not what the news talks about," Krosnick said. "It's what each voter is personally passionate about in the policy arena. The country is a patchwork quilt of lots of little groups who are passionate about particular things."