Thune says Iran war has ‘trumped everything else’ for voters

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Monday that the Iran war has become an incredibly important issue for voters ahead of the November midterms, which are only a few weeks out.

“Well, right now, the races are — it’s more about — it’s, you know, it is affordability issues, it’s the price of diesel in places like Iowa and Kansas and Nebraska and the Midwest, Minnesota,” Thune said Monday on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

“And so, I think that’s the issue. And what’s happening, Iran is sort of trumped everything else that’s going on,” he added.

As the midterms approach, the GOP is facing rocky political territory, with President Trump’s approval ratings sliding, Democrats outperforming Republicans in recent polling, the unpopular war in Iran hitting the seven-month mark and wider concerns about the economy.

The war in Iran has driven up energy costs, with the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the oil industry, closed amid the fighting.

According to AAA , the average cost of a regular gallon of gas in the U.S. was about $4.48 Monday afternoon, up from about $3.13 a year ago. For diesel, the average cost of a gallon was about $6.45, up from close to $3.69 last year.

In fresh polling from The Wall Street Journal, 60 percent of registered voter respondents said Trump’s policies on the economy have worsened it, while 25 percent said the opposite and 10 percent said his policies haven’t affected the economy.

On Sunday, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said Trump was “stuck” dealing with the Iran war and was looking to “get back to where” the U.S. had been before the conflict kicked off.

“The president got into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline, without an exit strategy. He’s stuck,” Kelly told host Martha Raddatz on ABC News’s “This Week.”