begin though with the impact of rising
prices everywhere and the pain that's
causing millions of americans yeah the
new april numbers revealing that
inflation still remains close to a
40-year high
and you've likely noticed just about
everything cost more now from the
grocery store to the gas pump according
to aaa the average price of a regular
gallon of gas i mean do we even want to
talk about this it's four dollars 42
cents so put that into perspective
that's up 18 cents from just a week ago
and more than a dollar forty from last
year one of the states really feeling
the pinch is georgia it ranks seventh of
all states in miles driven by residents
per year and that is where we find nbc
news correspondent ellison barber she's
in gainesville georgia ellison great to
see you good morning over the past few
years georgia has been at the center of
the political universe what are people
there saying about the rising cost of
gas and who do they blame
yeah i mean they are incredibly
frustrated you talked about it the
national gas average today for the
country is four dollars and forty two
cents here in georgia that average this
morning three dollars and ninety five
cents we went to three different
politically significant but politically
different counties to try and get a
sense of what voters here think about
all of this we went to dekalb county
first that's a solidly blue county that
democrats focus on to try and get high
turnout then we went to gwinnett county
that's a really important swing county
these days then we came here to hall
county which is a solidly red county
that republicans need and want high
turnout in as we spoke to people in all
three counties every single person told
us they are frustrated with the prices
that they're seeing at the pump and in
the grocery store they say they feel
like it is not sustainable something
needs to change but when we ask them who
or what is to blame
the answer is different listen
well the republicans are in office we
wouldn't have this
problem the way i feel
i'm a republican
it's a political issue i don't think
it's fine as well i feel like it's just
like
cause like a russia and like how they
control a lot of the
the oil and stuff like that who do we
pick
you know
with political issues
do you pick this person because
even though they got some great issues
but they're not they're not
wanting to deal with you know the major
issue of gas right now or do you pick
the person that's going to deal with the
gas issue but then you don't like the
rest of this issue
okay so bear with me for a second
because i'm going to try and do a little
bit of math we were talking to a gas
station a business owner yesterday he
owned you know one or two gas stations
and he said look this is actually really
bad for me as a business owner as well
he said the prime price that he was
paying to buy a gallon of gas from
chevron was
3.37 he said he has to pay about 31
cents in federal taxes in georgia the
excise tax that's gone at least until
the end of the month the governor
suspended that he said then there's also
sales tax not to mention that you have
to pay the guy or the person who
delivers the gas so he says they're
paying roughly
3.68 a gallon he was selling it at
3.89 he said typically right now they're
only seeing a profit margin of somewhere
between 10 and 12 cents per gallon and
they're actually really relying on the
things they're selling inside the stores
to make a profit so he was saying all in
all he's hearing from customers they're
frustrated he said he's frustrated as
well vicki uh well georgia also has a
senate seat on the ballot this november
and in a state that has a notorious
traffic issue infrastructure issues what
are the candidates saying they're going
to do to fix these problems
yeah the question is is this going to be
a campaign issue when you talk to
republicans they say yes absolutely the
leading republican senate hopeful right
now herschel walker in a statement from
his campaign given to nbc news he said
this quote president biden and senator
warnock have managed to destroy the u.s
economy in just 16 months i'm hearing
from georgia voters who say they didn't
know a vote for senator warnock would
cost them an extra 8.3 percent inflation
tax on everything these policies don't
just happen he says they are a direct
result of president biden and senator
warnock canceling the keystone pipeline
shipping american jobs overseas and
recklessly spending money we don't have
senator rafael warnock the incumbent
senate democrat his campaign told us
this quote reverend warnock is laser
focused on lowering costs for
hard-working families all across the
state he is leading the fight to freeze
the gas tax cap the cost of insulin and
bring down the cost of prescription
drugs while also holding big
corporations that are making record
profits accountable for price gouging i
was talking to a source with uh herschel
walker's campaign and they told us they
believe for republicans heading into the
general election which right now it
looks like the candidate will most
likely be herschel walker based on the
polls they say they feel like gas prices
are the main issue in georgia and
something they will focus heavily on in
a general election
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