Gas prices on Thursday soared to a national average of $5.00 per gallon, according to GasBuddy.
The $5.00 per gallon mark has never been reached before and represents a twelve consecutive record-day high.
In all 50 states on Thursday, the average price of a gallon of gas reached above $4.40, according to AAA data.
In California, gas prices on Thursday reached $6.40 per gallon. JPMorgan commodities analyst predicted gas prices may increase to more than $6.00 per gallon before Labor Day.
Gas prices have more than doubled since former President Donald Trump left office.
Trump had warned voters that if Biden won the 2020 election, the price of gas would reach at least $7.00 per gallon. “If Biden got in, you’d be paying $7, $8, $9. Then they’d say ‘get rid of your car!’”
In 2006, then-Sen. Joe Biden slammed the Bush administration for gas prices just above $3.00. “It is well over $3/gallon in most of our constituencies,” Biden said. “We’re paying that money, in my view, because we lack an energy policy.”
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters last week that American drivers will have to pay at least four dollars a gallon for the foreseeable future. “The price of gas is likely to remain above $4 per gallon,” she estimated, based on Department of Energy data.
Americans will pay $450 more for gas in 2022 than they did last year on an inflation-adjusted basis, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated this week.
According to Sunday polling, 74 percent of respondents said Biden’s soaring gas prices are an “extremely/very important” factor in how they will vote in the midterm elections. Biden’s approval for his management of gas prices is only 27 percent.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.