Oil's Near Wartime Highs. The Shock Is Now Slamming a Trump Political Stronghold.

An oil-price surge to wartime highs cooled Thursday. But the resulting runup in Americans' gas costs is hitting a key region for President Trump's political support. Prices at the pump in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa climbed faster than in any other states over the past week, according to AAA. Trump won all five in the 2024 election. Oil futures' furious runup in recent days tells only part of the story. Gas-stations nationwide are scrambling to claw back profits that got hammered in the early weeks of the war. Record U.S. exports are also siphoning petroleum out of storage facilities nationwide to feed a fuel-starved global market. At the same time, analysts say a temporary outage at a major refinery in northwest Indiana is compounding the regional supply crunch. Wholesale diesel prices in Chicago Wednesday hit a record, according to Argus Media, surpassing those on the West Coast. Midwest jet-fuel costs also catapulted higher.