Iran War's Cost Hits Voters as Trump Stays Locked In

President Donald Trump acknowledged that the Iran war and high gasoline prices hurt Republicans in the midterms, but said he’d make the same decisions again. Voters faced rising costs; the president said the war could continue. The Chicago Tribune reported that Trump told reporters Thursday, “If we have to do the rest of the Iran thing, we’re very much locked in.”

Fortune reported that Trump had threatened for weeks to resume a full-scale bombardment of Iran after the election if Tehran didn’t accept his terms. The conflict is in its first year. The election losses, the Tribune reported, hadn’t changed Trump’s calculations about the war.

Who Pays for the Decisions

The national exit poll found that 89% of voters said the cost of living was crucial or a major factor in their vote. Government corruption ranked slightly higher, at 90%. Republicans lost both chambers of Congress, and NBC’s exit poll found they’d lost their advantage on the economy, Fortune reported.

The price tags were concrete. Ground beef cost $6.79 a pound in September, up 22% since Trump returned to office, Fortune reported. Gas prices had risen 40% since the Iran war began in February. Gas averaged $4.12 a gallon, about $1 more than a year earlier.

Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs would cost a typical household more than $1,000 a year, Fortune reported. Inflation reached 3.7% over the year through September, with energy accounting for roughly 40% of the increase. Even in the most optimistic scenario, gas prices could take three months after a ceasefire to return to prewar levels.

When the war pushed oil prices higher in March, Trump wrote that prices would fall after the Iran threat ended and that “ONLY FOOLS” wouldn’t see higher costs as a small price to pay. The Republican National Committee spokeswoman later accused Democrats of “fearmongering” about gas prices. Households got the bill; party officials traded accusations.

The Cost-of-Living Denial

Trump and Republicans had dismissed affordability as a Democratic talking point, Fortune reported. At a Cabinet meeting the previous December, Trump called the word “affordability” a “con job by the Democrats.” At the G7 summit in June, he called it a “fake word made up by the Democrats,” and at the Republican convention in September said, “They use the word affordability, right? It’s fake.”

But nearly three-quarters of Trump’s voters rated the cost of living bad or the worst ever in December 2025. In an October survey, 96% of Republicans said the country was in an affordability “crisis.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in December 2025, “You can’t call it a hoax and suggest that people are going to believe it.”

In a still-contested Mississippi Senate race, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a cattle rancher, answered a question about beef prices by saying voters had “so many proteins to choose from.” In Ohio, Sen. Jon Husted said people could make things more affordable by “earn more.” Husted lost on Tuesday.

A young voter asked how her generation could afford to start a family, and Vice President JD Vance joked about Husted’s backside. Vance later acknowledged Republicans hadn’t adequately addressed the cost-of-living crisis. Fortune also reported that when former President Barack Obama criticized the administration over prices, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ate at a Cheesecake Factory near the White House and mocked Obama. Obama said the administration focused on his joke instead of prices: “These are not serious people.”

Ballots, War and the Limits of Promises

The midterm results shifted control of both chambers of Congress, but the president said the election wouldn’t alter his approach to the war. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats intended to end the war and lower costs, promising “relief is on the way.” Fortune reported the promise alongside the gas price and ceasefire figures, not a guarantee that prices would quickly fall.

Fortune said Democrats’ 2026 winners were mostly moderates who campaigned on costs, while cultural politics that peaked in 2020 and 2021 continued to recede. It reported that 43% of Americans viewed socialism positively by the fall of 2026, and that Vance warned Republicans not to blame young people for that support when housing costs kept them from buying homes. The election registered anger over costs and war. The power to continue the war, Trump said, remained in his hands.