President Donald Trump said oil prices would not decline until after the November 3 midterm elections, linking any relief at the pump to an Iran war he expects Tehran to abandon after Americans vote. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose 3.78% to $103 on Wednesday, its highest level since May, following fresh strikes around the Strait of Hormuz. The American Automobile Association (AAA) put the national gasoline average at $4.22 a gallon, up from $4.01 a month earlier. Trump, speaking before traveling to a Republican convention in Dallas, accused Iran of prolonging the conflict to weaken his party in the congressional elections held halfway through a presidential term. He said Tehran was near collapse and would seek to end the war immediately after the vote, but no Iranian official has offered that timetable. The conflict is in its seventh month. BeInCrypto had reported a day earlier that Goldman Sachs saw $120 oil as Trump walked away from diplomacy, a view Wednesday's remarks reinforced. Iran's Consulate General rejected Trump's political timing for oil prices, while Peter Schiff challenged his explanation of the war's duration. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and crypto bettors currently assign Democrats 51% odds of sweeping them, citing record gasoline prices as one factor. Historical and academic evidence in the report offers limited support for Trump's timeline: oil fell after a 1990 midterm period as the Gulf War changed and supply fears eased, while a World Bank study of 207 elections across 50 democracies found that a 1% oil shock reduced an incumbent's re-election odds by 5.9 percentage points. The analysis concludes that November's oil outlook depends more on whether the Strait of Hormuz reopens than on the election result.