Trump says Iran war is worth the economic pain. These rural voters agree

WIGGINS, Colorado - Perched behind the cash register at Stubs liquor store, Ms Amy Van Duyn gazed out the window at a red-and-green gasoline price sign, which she said seemed to tick up daily.

The price was US$4.34 (S$5.55) a gallon - about 50 per cent higher than it was in these parts when President Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025.

“I used to fill my tank for US$36,” said Ms Van Duyn, 42. “Now US$36 gets me half a tank.”

Her co-worker, Ms Tonyah Bruyette, said when it’s time to buy groceries, she’s left wondering where all her money went: “We’re putting it in the tank rather than on our table.”

Like most people in and around Wiggins, a farming town of 1,400 people in north-east Colorado, Ms Van Duyn and Ms Bruyette remain ardent supporters of the president, who won surrounding Morgan County by 49 percentage points in 2024.

Nationally, Mr Trump’s political fortunes appear to be waning. His war with Iran has sent fuel prices soaring past US$4.50 a gallon nationwide, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll in April found nearly 8 in 10 Americans hold the president responsible for higher gasoline prices.

Mr Trump was asked this week if people’s economic woes were motivating him to reach a deal with Tehran.

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” he responded.

“The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Democrats seized on the comments as evidence of an administration losing touch with an anxious public. Only 30 per cent of US adults approved of Mr Trump’s handling of the economy as of a May Reuters/Ipsos poll, an issue that had long been one of his political strengths.

But in two dozen recent interviews along Colorado’s Highway 52 - a two-lane blacktop road punctuated by grain elevators, feedlots and oil pumpjacks - Trump voters echoed the president’s logic.

Across Morgan and Weld counties, which haven’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1964, voters were willing to pay more for gas if it meant eliminating a possible Iranian nuclear threat. Energy prices had also spiked under former president Joe Biden, many said.

Some begrudgingly stood by Mr Trump because of their distaste for Democrats; others expressed faith the president had a plan to bring costs down. It was a testament to the durable, personal bond Mr Trump has built with his base, allowing him to weather multiple crises across his two terms.

“It feels like he hears us,” said Ms Bruyette, “that he is fighting for us.”

‘Willing to sacrifice’

About 40km south-west of Wiggins, Mr Jim Miller was elbows-deep in the engine of his ailing Dodge pickup.

A 65-year-old retired commodities broker raised in the liberal city of Boulder who now lives in tiny Prospect Valley, Mr Miller considers himself “half-hippie, half-cowboy.”

He said enduring the momentary pain of high gas prices was worth preventing Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon.

Mr Miller recalled stories of American resilience during World War II, when goods were rationed and households lived with less.

“I struggle, like everybody else does, but I’m willing to sacrifice a little,” Mr Miller said. “That’s been totally lost in this country, people’s willingness to sacrifice.”

In the unincorporated town of Roggen was Mr Mike Urbanowicz, a 66-year-old trader with multiple college degrees whose farming cooperative moves 150 truckloads of grain each day.

He voted three times for Mr Trump, but like many interviewed by Reuters, he considers himself a political independent, saying he distrusts the Republican Party nearly as much as their Democratic foes.

Gas prices were hurting his industry, he said, and Mr Trump was “naive” to think he could quickly solve the issue. He expected prices would remain high into the fall, even if there was a breakthrough in stalled US-Iran peace talks.

But he preferred the status quo to Democrats, whom he saw as moving towards “full-blown socialism.”

“I voted for Trump because the alternative is so bad,” he said.

‘All on board’

In Fort Morgan, Ms Lexys Siebrands, 22, lay prone on a table inside the Bad Medicine Inkporium tattoo parlour, smiling through the pain in her left calf, where there were images of a wanted poster, a stagecoach and other Western-themed designs.

A gay woman who recently found Christianity, Ms Siebrands once considered herself a Democrat, but started to think of herself as a Republican around 2022 - citing what she called the hypocrisy of liberals around identity politics - and voted for Mr Trump.

She saw war with Iran as inevitable. “Something was going to happen eventually, whether it was Iran doing something to us or us doing it to them.”

Sitting next to her daughter was 49-year-old Mrs Jyl Siebrands. She grew up as a political independent but later gravitated towards Republicans.

She said she hated high gas prices, but feared the prospect of a nuclear-armed Tehran even more. “It’s just where we are with this war,” she said. “People just have to give it time.”

Did she have any red lines? Anything that might shake her faith in Mr Trump’s handling of the war or the economy?

“No,” she said. “I’m all on board.” REUTERS