Brad Brooks
WIGGINS, Colo., May 16 (Reuters) – Amy Van Duyn sat behind the cash register at a Stubs liquor store and stared out the window at a red and green gas price sign that she said seemed to be rising every day.
The price is $4.34 per gallon, about 50% higher than prices in these areas last year when President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
“I used to pay $36 to fill up my tank. Now $36 gets me half a tank,” said Van Duyn, 42.
Her co-worker Tonyah Bruyette says that when it’s time to buy groceries, she wonders where all her money has gone: “We put it in the tank, not on the table.”
Like most people in and around Wiggins, a farming town of 1,400 people in northeastern Colorado, Van Duyn and Brouillette remain ardent supporters of the president, who won surrounding Morgan County by 49 points in 2024.
Nationally, Trump’s political fortunes appear to be waning. His war with Iran has sent fuel prices nationwide soaring above $4.50 a gallon, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that nearly 8 in 10 Americans hold the president responsible for rising gas prices.
Trump was asked this week whether people’s economic woes prompted him to strike a deal with Tehran. “I don’t think about the financial well-being of Americans,” he responded. “When I talk about Iran, the only thing that matters is that they cannot have nuclear weapons.”
Democrats have seized on the comments as evidence that the administration has lost touch with an anxious public. Only 30% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, an issue that has long been one of his political strengths, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May.
But in more than two dozen interviews recently conducted along Colorado’s Highway 52, a two-lane paved road dotted with grain elevators, feedlots and oil pumps, Trump voters agreed with the president’s logic.
Morgan and Weld counties have not voted Democratic in a presidential election since 1964, and voters are willing to pay more for natural gas if it means eliminating a possible Iranian nuclear threat. Energy prices have also soared under President Joe Biden, many say.
Some reluctantly support Trump because they hate Democrats. Others expressed confidence that the president has a plan to reduce costs. It’s a testament to the enduring personal bonds Trump has developed with his supporters that have allowed him to weather multiple crises over his two terms.
“It feels like he hears us,” Brouillette said, “and he’s fighting for us.”
“Willing to sacrifice”
About 25 miles southwest of Wiggins, Jim Miller was elbow-deep in the engine of his disabled Dodge pickup truck.
Miller, a 65-year-old retired commodities broker who grew up in the liberal city of Boulder and now lives in tiny Prospect Valley, considers himself “half hippie, half cowboy.”
He said enduring the temporary pain of high oil prices was worth preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Miller recalled America’s story of resilience during World War II, when goods were rationed and families had less to live with.
“I struggle like everybody else, but I’m willing to make a little sacrifice,” Miller said. “This country has completely lost people’s willingness to sacrifice.”
Mike Urbanowicz is a 66-year-old businessman with multiple college degrees who lives in the unincorporated town of Roggen and whose agricultural cooperative delivers 150 truckloads of grain a day.
He voted for Trump three times, but like many who spoke to Reuters, he considers himself a political independent and said he distrusts Republicans almost as much as he does his Democratic foes.
He said natural gas prices were hurting his industry and Trump was “naive” in thinking he could fix the problem quickly. He expects oil prices to remain high in the fall even if there is a breakthrough in the stalled U.S.-Iran peace talks.
But he prefers the status quo to the Democratic Party, which he believes is moving toward “full-fledged socialism.”
“I voted for Trump because the alternative was so bad,” he said.
“Everyone is on board”
In Fort Morgan, Lexys Siebrands, 22, slumped over a table in Bad Medicine Inkporium, a tattoo parlor with images of wanted posters, stagecoaches and other Western-themed designs, her face plastered with the pain in her left calf.
Seebrands, a gay woman who recently discovered Christianity, once considered herself a Democrat but around 2022 started identifying as a Republican — calling liberals hypocritical about identity politics — and voted for Trump.
She believes war with Iran is inevitable. “Eventually something is going to happen, whether it’s what Iran does to us or what we do to them.”
Sitting next to her daughter was 49-year-old Jyl Siebrands. She grew up as a political independent but later leaned toward the Republican Party.
She said she hated high oil prices but was more worried about the prospect of Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons. “That’s exactly where we are in this war,” she said. “People just have to give it time.”
Is there a red line on her body? Is there anything that might shake her confidence in Trump’s handling of the war or the economy?
“No,” she said. “I’m all on board.”
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Jesse Messner-Hage and David Garfin;)
