U.S. President Donald Trump attends a FIFA reception at Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., July 17, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
Survey analyst G. Elliot Morris reports voters aren’t falling for President Donald Trump’s scheme to blame oil companies for high prices. They know it’s the president’s fault — and they think we’re here because he’s nuts.
The national average price of gasoline is back above $4 a gallon as fighting with Iran resumed in recent weeks, reports Morris. Rather than haggle out a lasting peace accord for the war Trump started, Trump’s response has been a well-lauded proposal to hunt down price-gougers with a probe of oil companies, despite oil companies warning Trump what his Middle Eastern aggression would do to prices.
“Polls suggest voters aren’t buying the ruse,” said Morris. “In our latest Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll, fielded July 14–17, 51 percent of Americans say Trump and his administration are most responsible for the price of gas right now, whereas 12 percent put the blame primarily on oil and gas companies.”
In fact, Trump’s approval rating is accordingly at net -21 in new surveys, while Democrats score a 7-point margin on the generic ballot—their 14th straight poll that has them leading Republicans.
A deadly legion of rotten numbers are chasing Trump to the November midterms, actually. Nearly 60 percent (59 percent) of respondents say higher gas prices have forced them to cut back or delay other spending, and 51 percent of that say Trump and his administration are “most responsible for the price of gas right now.” Almost 75 percent of them say local gas prices are higher than six months ago. Worse, nearly half of them say gas prices will have “some” influence on their 2026 vote.
And before somebody screams “slanted poll,” Morris makes clear that Democrats’ lead is not a party-composition artifact.
“Democrats don’t just lead the generic ballot in our poll because our poll has too many Democrats. The partisan makeup of our samples is pinned to Pew’s NPORS benchmarks and barely moves from month to month.
But one additional bogeyman is hounding Trump and his Republican Party as the nation crashes into November: the looming specter of Trump’s fading mind.
Morris points out that an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll in July 2024 found 44 percent of Americans thought Trump had the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president. This was a stark contrast to just 14 percent of voters for Joe Biden, said Morris, amounting to a 30-point gap.
Biden’s mental fitness was one of Republicans’ most effective cudgels to beat Biden in the lead up to the 2024 election. Only now somebody else is holding that cudgel.
“Today, Trump is 80 and has increasing bouts of trouble in public (he sleeps a lot during press conferences and frequently slurs his speech), and voters are taking note,” notes Morris. “Overall, 46 percent of Americans rate his sharpness as president as ‘poor’ — within a few points of the 50 percent who retroactively said that about Joe Biden.”
So, not only is Trump being held liable for voters’ high costs, polls suggest a significant number of Americans no longer think he has the brains to pull the nation up from the dive.