In Texas, high gas prices are reshaping votes, and many voters doubt Trump's promise to lower them

In the US state of Texas, driving is an essential part of daily life. Residents there now say the higher price of gasoline is changing their political calculations, and President Donald Trump's pledge to lower prices at the pumps no longer sounds convincing to many voters.

Alina Cardenas, 19, works at a Dallas gas station called Fuel City. Behind its granite countertops, beside taxidermy deer flanking the entrance and hot tacos served around the clock, she sees first-hand every day that Texans are stretched thin.

According to Cardenas, drivers are filling up less than before, and fewer people are buying a full tank. Many stop once they have reached $10 or $20 worth of gasoline, a change she watches while ringing up customers for cigarettes and beer.

Cardenas, who is studying radiology at a local college, has herself cut back on gas by staying home more and driving only to go to work and school. In her words, it is just getting really expensive, and things got harder this year.

In a state nearly three times the size of the UK, with hundreds of thousands of miles of road, commuters can spend as much as six hours a day on the road going to and from their jobs. Over much of the past year, soaring energy costs brought on by the war in Iran have made that travel all the more expensive.

Higher gas prices are expected to play a major role in a key Texas Senate battle in the upcoming midterms. State representative James Talarico is trying to beat Republican Ken Paxton, a former state attorney general, to become the state's first Democratic senator in over 30 years. Recent polling shows Talarico with a slight edge over Paxton, who has been embroiled in scandals.

On Tuesday, a week before election day, Trump stood in front of an oil tanker docked in Corpus Christi, Texas, to announce that the first million barrels of oil from his deal with Venezuela had arrived in the state. At a rally for Paxton in Lubbock later that day, he described it as celebrating the greatest oil victory in history.

At another rally in Georgia later in the week, Trump touted the hundreds of billions of dollars that higher gas prices are bringing to American gas companies. Two of the largest, Exxon and Chevron, are based in Texas, and he told the crowd they were making a fortune.

But in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, many drivers remain unconvinced. Cardenas said inflated gas prices have probably made her go more Democrat, and that she will vote for Talarico.

Tom L, 40, commutes nearly six hours each day to his job as a data analyst in Dallas. He spends about $400 a month on gas, double what he was spending a year ago, and the diesel truck he uses for farm work now costs him around $200 a week. He said he has definitely had to budget tighter to compensate.

Tom voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, but said he is not sure if that was the right decision, and is unsure which Senate candidate he will support, as both have their benefits and flaws.

Because Texas is a top oil producer, its residents often enjoy cheaper gas prices than the rest of the US. But the state has not been immune to the rising cost amid the war in Iran. On average, a gallon of gas now costs $3.68, compared with $2.59 a year ago, according to AAA. Diesel has shot up by more than 80 percent, from $3.18 to $5.79.

Tom Seng, a professor of energy finances at Texas Christian University, said Texans are paying less than the national average, but they are also paying a lot more than they were a year ago, so they are feeling the pain just like everyone else. He said that on Tuesday morning, before they go to the polls, people are probably not opening their electric utility bill or grocery shopping, but the last thing they are likely to see before the polling place is the price of gasoline.

Kobe Montgomery, a security guard at Fuel City in Dallas, uses his car to get to his security job and to deliver for UberEats and Domino's on the side. He has no choice but to fill up whenever he needs to. Even though he has not noticed the higher cost of gas, he does not plan to vote at all in the upcoming midterms, out of fear of voting for the wrong person and regretting it.

Diamond M, a warehouse worker, spends at least three hours on the road to get to her job. Gas, she estimates, takes up about 20 percent of her take-home pay. She only fills up her tank on Friday, pay day, and forces herself to make the tank stretch the whole week. She plans to vote for Talarico, who she believes has the best shot of lowering costs for her.