Fuel · elections · states

Where fuel prices meet the November vote

Retail gasoline is a daily pocketbook signal. In competitive and divided-government states it can sit alongside jobs, health care, and security as a reason voters reassess party choice. This hub links static reports built in the fuelprices project—AAA state prices, EIA areas where available, and state-government context for 2026—so you can scan plausible focus states before the general election.

How the analysis flows

The pages are meant to be read in order: national vote weight, then who controls state government, then which states lack a trifecta, then how pump prices have moved in those states using the same AAA regular series.

  1. U.S. Electoral College

    See how population maps to House seats and electoral votes—useful context for which states carry the most weight in a presidential year. The atlas table adds a state trifecta column (same snapshot as elsewhere). Open Electoral College

  2. State government atlas

    Browse all states: legislature balance, governor, and links. Use it to ground party control before reading fuel tables. The 2026 election page lists seats up for governor and legislature. Atlas index · 2026 seats

  3. Divided trifecta states

    In electoral_college.html, rows with a divided trifecta mean no single party holds the governorship and both legislative chambers. Those are natural candidates for competitive state-level politics—and for cross-pressures (e.g. pocketbook issues vs. party loyalty). Eleven states fall in that bucket in the current snapshot. See trifecta column

  4. Fuel price changes (divided states)

    Daily AAA state averages in data/<USPS>.parquet feed divided_states_fuel_change.html: latest regular gasoline vs. each earlier snapshot, % vs. first observation, and chamber majors for context. Broader EIA-based views cover only a subset of states; see the top-10 EIA page for national-series areas. Divided states fuel change · EIA areas + AAA

Start here

Divided trifecta states — AAA % change

Eleven states with no single-party trifecta: latest regular gasoline vs earlier AAA snapshots, plus chamber majorities.

Open divided states fuel change

EIA reporting areas — YTD & weekly bridge

Nine states plus U.S. average: EIA start-of-year vs latest AAA, and % from each recent EIA week to latest AAA.

Open top EIA areas

State government atlas

Electoral College table (trifecta column), 2026 election seats, and per-state pages.

Atlas index

Cross-check

Electoral College + trifecta

Population, EVs, House seats; divided states highlighted in the main table.

electoral_college.html

2026 general election — seats up

Governor and legislature seats on the ballot by state.

election_2026.html

These pages are informational, not forecasts. Party labels and trifecta snapshots come from project sources and should be verified for the election cycle you care about. For repository layout and generator scripts, use Explore & paths.