Roger Marshall Cost of Living Iran War Kansas

In June, Roger Marshall Said Gas Prices Were 'Absolutely the Barometer for This Election.' Now He Says Kansans Care About Things 'More Important Than Money.'

Roger Marshall spent the summer saying the price of gas in October would decide the midterms, and predicting it would come down. Gas in Kansas is up more than 56% since the Iran war began. Now he says 'there are things more important than money to Kansans.'

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 22, 2026

In June, Roger Marshall Said Gas Prices Were 'Absolutely the Barometer for This Election.' Now He Says Kansans Care About Things 'More Important Than Money.' — Photo: Mark Schiefelbein / AP, via HuffPost

This spring, Roger Marshall told Kansans the Iran war's hit to their gas tanks would be short. He told them gas prices would decide the election. Now that gas hasn't come down and the election is two weeks away, the Kansas Republican senator has a new message: money isn't everything.

"Certainly the cost of gas is an issue, but now people are coming home saying, 'Oh, what's more important than money?'" Marshall told the Topeka Capital-Journal in an October 8 interview released Monday. "There are things more important than money to Kansans."

HuffPost laid out what Marshall was saying before.

What he said when he thought gas would come down

April: On Newsmax, Marshall compared Americans' pain at the pump to the sacrifices people made at home during World War II.
May: "I do think this war will be over sooner than later, and those gas prices will come back down," he said on Fox Business.
June: The cost of gas is "absolutely the barometer for this election," he said.
July: He told a radio host that "the price of gasoline in October" would show whether Americans had had enough of high prices under Trump.

Well, it's October.

What gas costs now

The war hasn't ended, and prices haven't come back down. Brown University's Watson School, which tracks the cost of the Iran war, reports that the national average gas price is up about 43% since the war began. In Kansas, according to HuffPost's reading of those figures, regular gas is up more than 56% and diesel is up 82.2%.

Marshall seemed to acknowledge as much to the Capital-Journal. "So, certainly, the cost of gas is a problem, is a concern for everybody," he said. "But what I'm hearing more and more now is the Republicans saying, 'Oh yes, I remember that national security is what's really important.'"

When the "barometer" turned against him

When Marshall thought gas prices would fall before November, he wanted the election to be about them. Now that they haven't, he wants it to be about something else.

The race has tightened. The Cook Political Report moved Kansas's Senate race from "Lean Republican" to "Toss Up" on October 6.

Marshall isn't the only Republican trying to talk his way around war-driven fuel prices. In Alabama, where diesel is up about 80% from a year ago, Tommy Tuberville said people there are "willing to pay" for Trump's war.

What the record shows

In May, Roger Marshall said gas prices from the Iran war would come back down, and in June he called the cost of gas "absolutely the barometer for this election." The war didn't end, and Kansas gas prices are up more than 56% and diesel 82% since it began, according to figures reported by HuffPost. Two weeks before the election, Marshall now says "there are things more important than money to Kansans."