Nothing triggers an American faster than getting hosed at the pump—or the plug. As of November 30, 2025, the national gas average sits at a forgiving $3.02, but the real party is in red states. Oklahoma drivers are laughing all the way to the lake: dozens of stations in Tulsa and OKC are slinging regular for $1.97–$1.99 a gallon, a price Californians haven’t seen since the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom’s California is still bleeding $4.63 a gallon—forty percent above the national average—despite the governor’s nonstop victory laps about “leading the clean-energy transition.”
Newsom talks a slick game: “California is building the future,” “We’re crushing climate change,” “EVs for everyone by 2035.” The reality? A decade of his policies have delivered the highest electricity rates in the continental U.S., chronic refinery outages, the nation’s most punitive gas taxes, and rolling blackouts that make fast-charging during peak hours a fantasy. His own California Energy Commission admits the grid can’t handle current EV demand, let alone the 12.5 million zero-emission vehicles he’s mandating in ten years. Translation: the man who banned new gas-car sales also presides over a state where public charging now routinely costs more per mile than gasoline.
Home charging in California averages 33–40 ¢/kWh (78 % higher than 2019), but public DC fast chargers—your only option if you rent or road-trip—are slamming drivers with 56–69 ¢/kWh once time-of-use and “demand charges” kick in. That’s $25–$35 to add 150 miles in a Tesla, often while you wait 45 minutes for a broken or ICE’d stall. In Newsom’s California, “fast” charging is now slower and pricier than filling a V8 pickup in Oklahoma for twenty bucks.
Across the bay in supposedly pragmatic New York, it’s the same story on a colder day: public rates pushing 64 ¢/kWh, winter range cuts of 30–40 %, and a governor who copies Newsom’s talking points while the grid teeters.
So what’s more infuriating? Gas that’s under two dollars and five minutes a fill in free America, or living under governors who promise utopia and deliver $70 fill-ups that take an hour and still leave you stranded when the next charger is occupied by a Cybertruck doing 11 kW on a 350 kW stall?
Newsom can keep the speeches. The rest of us will keep the receipts—and the sub-$2 gas in states that never believed his hype in the first place. His words and other blue state leaders words may sound good, but their actual records are GARBAGE.