How Trump’s ‘little detour’ to Iran became a roadblock in the midterm elections

By  THOMAS BEAUMONT and AAMER MADHANI

WASHINGTON (AP) — Noor Dubow says he regularly votes for Republican candidates who he believes align with his economic views — even though he’s never been a fan of Donald Trump, finding himself repelled by some of the president’s dehumanizing rhetoric toward immigrants.

But this year, when Dubow cast his early ballot in the midterm election, he found himself tipping more toward Democrats because of his frustration with Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran.

“Where are the Republicans in Congress?” asked Dubow, 44, a dispatcher at a trucking logistics firm in Columbus, Ohio, where he has a bird’s eye view of the disruption that surging fuel prices are having on the economy. “Why aren’t the Republicans holding Trump accountable?”

The Iran war, which Trump often describes as a “little detour,” has emerged as an unforced liability for the president, who once promised to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars.

Republican strategists privately acknowledge that the war is severely damaging the party’s push to retain control of Congress for the final two years of Trump’s presidency as rising gasoline prices drive up costs across nearly every sector and new hostilities emerge.

Voters are tired of elevated gas prices

High energy costs and voter fatigue over the nearly eight-month-old war — one that Trump predicted at the onset would last a matter of weeks — are weighing heavily on Republican candidates.

Regardless of the outcome of the Nov. 3 elections, an AP-NORC poll published last week found that voters from both major political parties want the next Congress to focus on making life more affordable and end the war in Iran that’s had enormous ramifications for the global economy.

The situation has only become more complicated for Republicans making their case to voters. The conflict has spread, with Iran-backed Houthi rebels carrying out a series of attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure and airports. A Saudi-led coalition has responded with its own deadly attacks on Houthi-held territory in Yemen.

Over the weekend, the State Department said it was reducing staffing at four U.S. embassies in the Middle East after receiving intelligence that Iran has stepped up efforts to target American personnel in the region and elsewhere.

Some Republican voters are frustrated

In interviews, even some Republican voters who say they support Trump’s decision to launch the war admit gas prices are testing their patience.

Clay Coey, 59, said he sometimes cringes when he fills the tank of his 2010 Chrysler Sebring, even as he says he’s willing to temporarily pay higher gas prices to eliminate what he sees as a major security threat to the U.S.

“Do I like it? No, I drive this old beast,” said Coey, an auctioneer from DeWitt, Michigan. “However, there does come a point in time where you have to sit here and say, what is worth the cost?”

Some voters say Trump fumbled by predicting the war would be over in a matter of weeks.

Elizabeth Marlett, 61, of Moville, Iowa, said she wished Trump had avoided setting a timeline for the conflict and wished he would order the U.S. military to act more forcefully to force Tehran to capitulate. Still, she’s sticking with Trump.

“We need to support our commander in chief, even if things take longer than expected,” said Marlett, a small-herd beef rancher from Iowa’s GOP-heavy northwest. “That’s life, and we can’t run from something we’ve started.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s decision to start the war has been seen by some supporters as a betrayal of a central tenet of the Republican leader’s “America First” campaign pledge: the promise to keep the U.S. out of the sort of “forever wars” that bogged down some of his recent White House predecessors.

Sean O’Brien, 21, a student at Auburn University in Alabama, said Trump’s Iran decision left him “very disillusioned.”

O’Brien earlier this year attended the Conservative Political Action Conference, a major gathering for those on the political right. Now, he’s rethinking his allegiances.

“At the moment, I expect to vote Democratic,” said O’Brien, who considers himself an independent.

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Beaumont reported from Sioux City, Iowa. AP journalists Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos in Columbus, Ohio, and Jacqueline GaNun in DeWitt, Michigan, contributed to this report.

THOMAS BEAUMONT

Beaumont covers national politics for The Associated Press. He is based in Des Moines, Iowa.

AAMER MADHANI

Madhani is a White House reporter for the Associated Press whose reporting focuses on U.S. foreign policy. Contact him securely on Signal at aamermadhani.39