Gas prices are higher than they've ever been at this point in recent election cycles

Another leg up in gas prices to begin September has underlined the political headwind that President Trump and Republicans face on the issue, with exactly seven weeks left before the midterm elections.

The average price of US regular gasoline is $4.32 per gallon as of Monday, according to the latest weekly data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) , a nearly $0.25 rise over the last two weeks.

The EIA data, which goes back to 1990, also shows that gas prices are the highest they've ever been at this stage in any recent election cycle, according to a Yahoo Finance analysis.

The second-highest price on record at this point — 49 days from an election — came in 2012 when gas cost $3.88 per gallon. The third-highest price was $3.65 in 2022. Both were election years when a Democratic administration was in power, and Republicans put a heavy focus on the issue of pump prices.

"Gas prices are at crazy levels--fire Obama!" then private citizen Donald Trump posted to social media back in 2012 .

With Trump now in office, gas prices are being pushed up by a variety of factors, including both the wars in Iran and Ukraine, and they're hitting as Trump has few options to lower them due to widening disruptions in the Middle East and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at historically low levels after months of withdrawals.

Diesel, which broke through all-time high prices earlier this month and hit another record high on Tuesday , is yet another economic headwind.

The historical data also shows that prices tend to decline in the run-up to election day — in keeping with fall trends — but this year may be an outlier.

Nonpartisan energy analysts are downplaying the chances of significant price easing in the weeks or months ahead.

"In a typical year, the consumer would see a seasonal decline in gasoline prices as refiners switched from the more expensive summer grade gasoline to the less expensive winter grade formulation," wrote Andrew Lipow, the president of Lipow Oil Associates, in a note to Yahoo Finance.

But "this has been anything but a typical year," he said, noting that substantial price increases in gasoline and diesel could be felt across a range of consumer goods and are "wiping out the season savings that the consumer has come to expect."

GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan added in a recent blog post that the transition to cheaper winter-blend gasoline may help some, but "the scale of ongoing geopolitical escalations makes meaningful price relief unlikely in the near term."