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August 06, 2026 09:19 AM UTC

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• by: Colorado Pols

Five years ago this coming weekend, Colorado Republicans held an event they thought would score points with the voting public, calling out majority Democrats for high gas prices at the time caused primarily by surging demand as the global economy emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Republicans led by then-chair Kristi Burton Brown didn’t want to get into those externalities of course, focusing on the supposed misdeeds of local Democrats contributing to those globally high prices–even though as an energy-producing state, Colorado’s gas prices generally run slightly below the national average.

But as Marshall Zelinger reported for 9NEWS on August 9th, 2021, the GOP’s gas-station message was sabotaged by another factor giving us a profound feeling of deja vu this week:

The imagery was unmistakable.

A political news conference at a gas station following a weekend of Denver topping the list for the worst air in the world, on a day of a landmark international report on climate change.

“If you’re wondering why are we having this press conference as a gas station. Last November, in 2020, gas was $2.19 a gallon, today as you can see, it’s $3.69 per gallon,” said Colorado Republican Chair Kristi Burton Brown. “That is thanks to the Democrats policies that are failing Colorado.”

Under smoky grey-brown skies starkly similar to conditions this summer in Colorado as massive wildfires throughout the West choke out Americans by the millions, Colorado Republicans tried–and by all contemporary news reports, failed as dismally as the weather–to assign blame for the high gas prices of the day on local Democrats with the looming consequences of humanity’s dependence on burning fossil fuels literally blocking out the sun above their heads. In the end, the irony of the Republicans’ deceitful message delivered under clouds of incriminating smoke became the story. The Colorado GOP’s gas station presser would go down in history as an unusually on-the-nose public relations debacle, and needless to say, it did not help them at the polls the following election.

Fast-forward five years to the Colorado Springs Gazette’s eerily similar headline this week:

The average price for a gallon of gas was $4.13 on Friday, the 11th consecutive day above $4 in the state, which was surpassed on July 21, [AAA Colorado] said.

A seasonal price downshift may not happen this year.

“Typically, August brings some relief at the pump as road trips wind down and fall routines get underway for many families,” AAA said in a Thursday news release. “But elevated crude oil prices could prevent that seasonal shift from starting just yet.”

Those prices are largely being driven by the war in the Middle East that affects oil shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Reuters.

And as 9NEWS reported yesterday:

All of Colorado’s 64 counties are under an Air Quality Alert through at least 4 p.m. Wednesday for wildfire smoke.

Five years later, the politics of both gas prices and climate change–not to mention competent government–have completely turned against Republicans, with a potentially devastating midterm election rapidly approaching. In August of 2026, it’s the capricious foreign policy of an incompetent Republican President driving gas prices higher than they were five years ago with no end in sight, and a Republican administration facing the hard questions after sweeping cuts to public lands workers ahead of what is proving to be the deadliest fire season in many years.

There will be no gas station press conference by Colorado Republicans this year. This is an anniversary they’ll be happy to let pass without commemoration.

Because Donald Trump has turned what were once the GOP’s assets into painfully ironic liabilities.

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