⛽PENALTY AT THE GAS PUMP: Mike Lawler’s Cost-Spiking Iran War Votes “Threaten to Upend” His Re-election

Thanks to Lawler’s repeated votes, New Yorkers have paid an additional $450 in gas alone this year, with prices peaking at $4.61 per gallon — “an unnecessary cost hike for families in the midst of an affordability crisis.” 

REMINDER: Rather than delivering financial relief for hardworking Hudson Valley families, Lawler doubled down on his votes, claiming rising costs from the war are “absolutely worth it,” and standing by as Trump’s Treasury Secretary dismissed pain at the pump as a “blip.”

DCCC Spokesperson Riya Vashi:
“Mike Lawler couldn’t be more out of touch with Hudson Valley families. Rather than working to fix the pain at the pump, Lawler has bent the knee to his party bosses time and time again. His failure to lower costs will cost him his seat in November.”

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Poughkeepsie Journal: Soaring gas prices from Iran war fuel political battles in New York midterms

• For New York drivers, the ongoing war with Iran is no longer just a foreign policy issue, it’s a penalty at the gas pump that threatens to upend the November midterm elections. What began as a temporary spike has stretched into five months, transforming everyday financial pain into a central battleground in the fight for control of Congress.

• President Donald Trump had dismissed temporary pain at the pump as a “very small price to pay” for confronting a hostile regime and curbing its nuclear ambitions. 

• According to AAA figures obtained by the USA TODAY Network, New York’s average gas price crossed the $4-per-gallon mark around April 3 and reached higher than $4.50 for nearly a month, peaking at $4.61 from May 19 to May 21. The statewide average stood at $4.15 as of Tuesday, Aug. 11.

• Those elevated costs are starting to add up. Over a 22-week period since the Iran war began, New Yorkers paid an average of $1.03 more per gallon than they paid during the same time period in 2025, according to federal data compiled by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. For a family using 20 gallons of gas per week, that comes to a total of about $450 in additional costs so far.

• Democrats have been on the attack for months over the war’s impact on gas prices, hammering the Republican president and Republican-led Congress for what they cast as an unnecessary cost hike for families in the midst of an affordability crisis.

• In a high-profile race in New York’s Hudson Valley, Democratic challenger Cait Conley is going after Republican Rep. Mike Lawler for voting five times against ordering a halt to the war, as most of his GOP colleagues did. Conley, an Army combat veteran and former national security official, is criticizing the war’s toll on both U.S. service members and on costs back home.

• “We are nearly five months into a conflict our government never should have started,” Conley wrote on social media on July 21. “Working families in the Hudson Valley and across the country cannot afford the skyrocketing costs of gas and groceries, but that didn’t stop Mike Lawler from voting to continue the war with Iran.”

• Conley, in a statement to the USA TODAY Network, said Trump launched a war “with no exit strategy” that had cost 18 American service members their lives and raised the prices of gas, groceries and other goods.

• “Mike Lawler has voted five times to rubberstamp this reckless war of choice, as his own constituents struggle to make ends meet,” Conley said. “When I’m in Congress, I will be a check on this administration’s power and make the lives of working families easier, not harder.”

• The race for Lawler’s 17th District seat is a key House battle this fall, one of 19 contests rated as “toss-ups” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. The House Democrats’ campaign arm recently launched an internet ad in support of Conley that is targeted to Hispanic voters and focused on costs, criticizing Lawler for voting in support of both the Iran war and Trump’s tariffs.

• “Lawler said it was ‘absolutely worth it,’“ the ad proclaims, inserting a snippet from a CNN interview with Lawler in March about the Iran war. “Worth it? Para quien? (For whom?)”