At Fuel City, a Dallas gas station, Alina Cardenas, 19, a radiology student who works there, said drivers are filling up less, with some stopping at $10 or $20 worth of gasoline. She has cut back herself, driving only to work and school. "It's just getting really expensive," she said. "Things got harder this year."
Driving is essential in a state nearly three times the size of the UK, and some commuters spend as much as six hours a day on the road. Soaring energy costs brought on by the war in Iran have made it more expensive.
Higher gas prices are expected to play a major role in how Texas voters decide a key midterm battle. State Rep. James Talarico is trying to defeat Republican Ken Paxton, a former state attorney general, and become the state's first Democratic senator in more than 30 years. Recent polling shows Talarico with a slight edge.
A week before election day, Donald Trump announced at an oil tanker docked in Corpus Christi that the first million barrels from his deal with Venezuela had arrived. At a rally for Paxton in Lubbock, he said: "We're celebrating the greatest oil victory in history." Tom L, 40, a Dallas data analyst, said he spends about $400 a month on gas, double a year ago. Gas averaged $3.68 a gallon, up from $2.59 a year earlier, according to The Guardian.