Democrats just flipped a Florida state House seat that includes Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
The RNC chair's answer to that was: remind voters about Biden.
Joe Gruters needs a better plan before November.
Joe Gruters on Iran War Gas Prices: Blame Biden
The Daily Caller sat down with RNC Chairman Joe Gruters and asked him the question every Republican voter is asking at the pump right now.
Gas is $4.09 a gallon nationally. The Iran war drove prices up nearly 40% since February. The producer price index just posted its largest year-over-year jump in three years. The tax cuts from Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill are being eaten alive by energy costs.
So what's the plan?
"I hate to keep on beating the Democrats up, but," Gruters started – and then beat the Democrats up.
He invoked Biden-era prices, called the Iran conflict a matter of "short-term pain" for "long-term gain," and said he expects Trump to "work overtime" on prices once the fighting stops.
He also said Republicans have "empathy" for Americans struggling at the pump.
Empathy.
That's the word the media spent four years using to describe Joe Biden while he watched inflation hit a 40-year high.
Why the Bidenflation Argument Is Losing Ground in 2026 Midterms
Here's what Gruters is betting on: that Republican voters forget gas hit $4.09 under Trump and remember it peaked at $5.22 in Michigan under Biden.
That worked in 2024 when Biden was the contrast.
Biden isn't on the ballot in November.
Democrats have already flipped 30 state legislative seats since Trump returned to office – including that Florida House district covering Mar-a-Lago, in a seat Trump won by 11 points.
Every single one of those races ran on affordability.
A Quinnipiac poll released this week found 65% of voters blame Trump for the gas price spike – 51% blame him a lot.
That's not a messaging problem.
That's voters holding the party in power accountable for prices on their watch.
The president's party has lost House seats in 36 of the last 39 midterm elections since the Civil War.
Republicans currently hold a razor-thin House margin – thin enough that a modest Democratic wave ends the majority.
The Real Reason Trump Went to War With Iran
To be fair to Gruters, he's not wrong about the strategic picture.
Trump made a call that no American president had ever made – going after Iran directly – and there’s a few good reasons for that.
First there’s the enormous political cost of being held responsible for precisely what Americans are experiencing at the pump right now.
they overlook the only road in and .
"It's a high risk with almost no political reward," Gruters said, "and that's why nobody's ever done it."
Honest lines like that you’re not likely to hear from top party officials all that often.
Trump knew the gas price spike was coming and did it anyway because the intel he listened to said a mass uprising was ready to topple the regime and that eliminating Iran's nuclear threat had to happen first cause who knows if the the devil you know or the next one will be worse.
We still don’t know the score on that but Trump was convinced whatever the case it would be more important than a midterm poll number.
Republicans just need to make it aggressively instead of hiding behind Biden comparisons that voters have already moved past.
The party that wins November won't be the one that reminds Americans what gas cost in 2022.
It’ll either be the one that extricates us from this mess and makes the case that $4 gas is in the review mirror and it's a safer world tomorrow – or it’ll be the one that seems like they kept more of their campaign promises.
Sources:
- Ireland Owens, "EXCLUSIVE: We Asked RNC Chair About Price Hikes During Iran War. He Said Blame Democrats," Daily Caller News Foundation, April 16, 2026.
- "RNC Chair Joe Gruters Calls Trump 'Secret Weapon' for 2026 GOP Midterms," Fox News, January 16, 2026.
- "Joe Gruters, a Trump Ally, Elected New Head of Republican National Committee," WUNC News, August 22, 2025.
- "Full List of Seats Democrats Have Flipped Since Trump Returned to Power," Newsweek, March 2026.
- "What Do Special Elections Mean for the Midterm Elections?" Brookings Institution, April 2026.
