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    [OC] I wondered why gas price is all over the news
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    [OC] I wondered why gas price is all over the news


    Fuel price spikes look small in absolute terms — $1/gallon, ~$50/month per household. But as a share of disposable income (after tax, after rent, after groceries) that number varies wildly by county.

    Crossed that against 2020→2024 presidential swing data. Bubble chart, one bubble per state, sized by electoral votes.

    The dark irony: the states that moved most toward Trump in 2024 tend to be the ones where a fuel spike bites hardest. Not making a causal claim — rurality drives both. But the overlap is real.

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    **Tools:** Claude (analysis + code), Chart.js, vanilla HTML/CSS/JS

    **Sources:** MIT Election Lab (2020 & 2024 results) · ACS 2023 median household income · EIA state fuel consumption · MERIC cost-of-living indices · BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey

    Posted by scifiware

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    19 Comments

    2. unfairkickazz93 on

      Eh, using a percent increase in gas price isn’t very good. Blue states typically have higher gas prices from the beginning.

    4. Parasaurlophus on

      The UK is somewhat insulated against price spikes in petrol (for vehicle fuel at least) because the price at the pumps is already high and people have just priced it in. If we pay another 10p per litre it is an increase of around 8%. The same increase of 50 cents for a US gallon would be a 17% rise if you are used to paying USD 3 per gallon.

    5. wcruse92 on

      Cant wait for them all to put I did this stickers like they did with Biden. Because they totally will right?

    6. nian2326076 on

      Gas prices might seem small, but they can really mess with budgets, especially where income after essentials is tight. Politically, rural areas that leaned more towards Trump feel it more. It’s not necessarily causation, but there’s a clear overlap. If you want to dig deeper, think about how infrastructure and local economies factor in. Transportation costs can hit rural areas harder since people drive more and have fewer public transit options. That’s why this issue gets so much attention.

    7. Gamer_Grease on

      I mean living in gigantic cookie cutter suburbs where you need to drive a mile just to get out onto the main road, then more miles to work, uses a lot of gas. Add to that a preference for huge SUVs and trucks and you have a lifestyle that can only exist on cheap gas.

      And that lifestyle is held up as ideal in most conservative states. They’re not exactly into walkable urbanism there.

    8. Bruised_Shin on

      I’d be curious at what income level people stop caring about gas prices. But then again you’d also be influenced by your type of vehicle since large or expensive vehicles typically have bad mpg or require diesel/premium.

    10. Longjumping-Panic-48 on

      And some states (cough Indiana) instituted major gas tax increases under Biden and refuse to repeal them

    11. 777_heavy on

      So basically gas prices are all over the news because the left wing mainstream media wants to sway the election.

      Tell me something I didn’t know 😂

    12. j_on on

      Gas prices are on the news everywhere now, not just in the US. It’s in the news daily in Germany as well. It has nothing to do with US internal politics, it’s just that everyone hates high gas prices and gets mad when there’s a clear reason for them.

    13. Pulp-nonfiction on

      Why use color and x axis to represent the same thing? I would have either not used color or used color to represent something else. Like nominal avg gas price in the state

    16. SharkAttackOmNom on

      So just to provide a challenge: I think this really shows that states representing more low-income households on average swung harder to the right.

      All states are experiencing a gas hike, but when compared against disposable income, you’re highlighting the preexisting condition of low income households, that also now bear a new weight of fuel prices.

      If I were to guess, the same chart made for the increase in egg prices would look identical since the slope is dominated by disposable income.

    18. DarkwingDan92 on

      Have a friend who voted for Trump. All I ever heard him say when Biden was in office was, “gas prices were never this high when Trump was in office!” We told him that the President doesn’t control the price of gas (at least not in the way he thought they did. I guess they do control the price if they go to war with the ones who are in control of it).

      Every time I’ve seen him over the past few weeks, it’s taken everything in me not to say something about the price of gas.