Get Ready for the Highest Thanksgiving Gas Prices Ever

Just a friendly reminder from the gas pump that President Biden’s policies, which will remain unchanged following the election last week, still continue hurting millions of Americans on a daily basis.

As the country heads into the week of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, and millions set out to travel, they’ll be met with the highest gas prices on record for this time of year. Just one year ago, prices were still rising but weren’t quite at this level in November of 2021. Prices are currently higher than they were one year ago and on another upward trend after cooling off during the summer.

As of this week, however, the cost of a gallon of gas is sitting 30 cents higher than it was 12 months ago:

Americans could be facing the highest gas prices ever for the Thanksgiving holiday travel season, as millions prepare to hit the road amid still sky high prices and inflation.

The national average price for a gallon of gas is projected to hit $3.68 next Thursday, November 24 as Americans prepare for the feast.

That number is 30 cents higher than the same time in 2021 and over 20 cents higher than the previous record of $3.44 per gallon in 2012.

Though prices remain historically high, they’re off from the record highs set earlier this spring when gas was peaking at $5 per gallon (and higher) in many parts of the country. That price point started forcing drivers to behave differently and demand ultimately started receding which helped alleviate the price.

The good news, amid the bad, is that most Americans won’t be discouraged and will still end up traveling. Some, believe it or not, will be traveling for the first time since 2019 to see relatives for Thanksgiving due to Covid:

While 62 percent of Americans have no plans to ride the roads for turkey day, only 21 percent say that the cause is high gas prices.

Patrick De Haan, the site’s head of petroleum analysis, said: ‘Americans are proving that while we’ll openly complain about high gas prices, most of us aren’t deterred from taking to the highways to observe Thanksgiving with those that matter most to us, especially as precautions from the pandemic have eased.’

GasBuddy says that travel will be busiest between 11a.m. and 2p.m. the Wednesday before the holiday and on Black Friday morning between 8a.m. and 11a.m.

The news comes as Americans continue to battle inflation, with some cities and states are battling the ongoing crisis in the US better than others, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Americans are willing to absorb some inflationary costs, that’s abundantly clear. If gas prices had remained near their all-time high closer to the election, Democrats may have lost some of the closer races they were able to squeak out. Biden’s approval ratings tack somewhat closely with gas prices as it’s an immediate and highly visible gauge people see every day.

With the midterms in the rearview and Democrats still basically in charge, minus the House of Representatives, Biden has signaled no change in his policies of attempting to stifle and destroy the oil and gas industry. The official policy of the Biden administration is to tout electric vehicles, which still must be charged by electricity that mostly comes from coal and natural gas, and push for the day when oil drilling is a thing of the past.

If you have to break some eggs, or household budgets in the meantime, while you’re making an electric vehicle omelet, Biden’s prepared to accept that.


Nate Ashworth

The Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Election Central. He's been blogging elections and politics for over a decade. He started covering the 2008 Presidential Election which turned into a full-time political blog in 2012 and 2016 that continues today.

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