Standing at the counter of Stubs liquor store, Amy Van Duyn watched the gas station sign across the street display $4.34 per gallon – a 50% jump from prices when President Donald Trump took office again last year.
“I used to fill my tank for $36,” the 42-year-old said. “Now $36 gets me half a tank.”
Her colleague Tonyah Bruyette described the grocery store struggle: “We’re putting it in the tank rather than on our table.”
Despite the financial strain, both women continue backing the president in Wiggins, a Colorado farming community of 1,400 residents. Trump carried the surrounding Morgan County by 49 percentage points in 2024.
While the president faces declining support nationwide due to his Iran conflict pushing gas prices above $4.50 per gallon, a recent Reuters/Ipsos survey showed nearly 8 out of 10 Americans blame Trump for higher fuel costs.
When questioned about whether economic hardships might push him toward a Tehran agreement, Trump replied: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
Democrats criticized these remarks as showing an administration disconnected from public concerns. A May Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed only 30% of adults approve of Trump’s economic management, previously one of his strongest political assets.
However, interviews with two dozen residents along Colorado’s Highway 52 – a rural route dotted with grain elevators, feedlots and oil pumps – revealed Trump supporters sharing the president’s perspective.
Throughout Morgan and Weld counties, areas that haven’t supported a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, voters expressed willingness to pay higher gas prices to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat. Many noted energy costs had also risen under President Joe Biden.
Some reluctantly supported Trump due to opposition to Democrats, while others believed the president had a cost-reduction strategy. This loyalty demonstrated Trump’s strong connection with his base throughout multiple challenges across his two terms.
“It feels like he hears us,” Bruyette said, “that he is fighting for us.”
About 25 miles southwest in Prospect Valley, Jim Miller worked on his broken Dodge pickup truck engine.
The 65-year-old former commodities broker, who moved from liberal Boulder and describes himself as “half-hippie, half-cowboy,” said temporary gas price pain was worthwhile to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
Miller referenced World War II American sacrifice, when rationing forced households to live with less.
“I struggle, like everybody else does, but I’m willing to sacrifice a little,” Miller explained. “That’s been totally lost in this country, people’s willingness to sacrifice.”
In Roggen, Mike Urbanowicz, a 66-year-old trader whose farming cooperative handles 150 daily grain truck shipments, voted for Trump three times but considers himself politically independent, distrusting both major parties.
While acknowledging gas prices hurt his industry and calling Trump “naive” about quick solutions, he expected high prices through fall even with potential U.S.-Iran peace breakthrough.
Still, he preferred current conditions over Democrats, whom he viewed as embracing “full-blown socialism.”
“I voted for Trump because the alternative is so bad,” he stated.
At Fort Morgan’s Bad Medicine Inkporium tattoo parlor, 22-year-old Lexys Siebrands smiled through pain as Western-themed designs were added to her left calf.
The gay woman who recently embraced Christianity once identified as Democratic but shifted Republican around 2022, citing what she called liberal hypocrisy on identity politics before voting for Trump.
She viewed Iran conflict as unavoidable: “Something was going to happen eventually, whether it was Iran doing something to us or us doing it to them.”
Her mother, 49-year-old Jyl Siebrands, grew up independent but later favored Republicans.
Despite hating high gas prices, she feared nuclear-armed Tehran more. “It’s just where we are with this war,” she said. “People just have to give it time.”
Asked about any limits to her Trump support regarding war or economic handling, she responded: “No. I’m all on board.”
