Thomas Tiffany

A Wisconsin farmer says rising fuel and fertilizer costs, influenced by geopolitical events, are threatening his family's farm.

Democratic candidate David Crowley blames Republican Tom Tiffany's votes related to the conflict in Iran for high fuel prices.

Republican candidate Tom Tiffany criticizes Crowley's record on taxes and spending in Milwaukee County.

Both candidates support repealing the state's minimum markup law on gasoline to lower prices, though experts question the potential savings.

WEST KEWAUNEE – Clark Riemer has never gambled at a casino but considers the $500,000 he and his brother pay each year to plant corn and soybeans on their farm to have higher stakes than any table game.

He locked in a contract in January for the 6,000 gallons of diesel he would need for the year. His brother did not, believing prices would stay low, Riemer told the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

When it came time to buy fertilizer, a retailer gave him a weekend in February to decide whether to pay $540 per ton. Then the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Riemer said the retailer could not get a price for nitrogen, phosphorus or pot ash the next Monday, and that any contract at $540-per-ton would not have been honored.

He considered this year the worst for farming in 35 years.

“Usually, I keep my mouth shut, but it’s to the point where I can’t no more,” Riemer said Sept. 21. “This farm could come to an end after 100-some years and all the blood, sweat and tears and everything that was put into this because of some policies, Washington, because somebody doesn’t care about people down here at the bottom.”

Farmers and families are balking at affording life’s costs, a national issue that’s weighed heavily in the race for Wisconsin governor. And with diesel prices breaking record highs day after day in Wisconsin, Democratic candidate for governor David Crowley started a statewide tour Sept. 21 to paint Republican opponent Tom Tiffany as responsible for high fuel prices, a framing Tiffany has challenged.

In Riemer’s shed with Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Crowley criticized Tiffany’s votes in the House of Representatives against resolutions to end the conflict in Iran, which he called “a war of choice.” He told reporters that farmers “have been left high and dry” from the continuing conflict.

“Tiffany had five chances to end the war that is driving these prices up,” Crowley said in a Sept. 21 news release, “and five times he has chosen his boss, Donald Trump, over the people he’s supposed to represent here in Wisconsin. I’m done with the excuses.”

In a statement to the Press-Gazette, Tiffany criticized tax increases and projected budget shortfalls in Milwaukee County under Crowley’s county executive leadership as going against the spirit of affordability. Tiffany has previously cast Crowley as a tax-and-spender, calling the tax increases and deficits “disqualifying” for the governorship. He has staked his economic pitch to voters on lowering taxes, which he has said will spur growth.

“David Crowley’s answer to rising costs is to take more of your hard-earned money,” Tiffany said. “Mine is to make sure you keep more of it so you have more for groceries, more for the bills, and more left in your pocket.”

Gas price volatility, largely influenced by geopolitical conflicts, has become a political issue in the campaign for governor.

The average price for regular gas in Wisconsin sat about 3 cents lower than the national average on Sept. 21, at $4.43 per gallon, according to AAA. It was $2.90 a gallon a year ago. The average price of diesel in the state sat at $6.56 on Sept. 21, exacerbated by downed refineries in Illinois and Indiana, plus Russian bans on its diesel exports in the wake of Ukrainian attacks on refineries.

Both Tiffany and Crowley have both come out in favor of repealing the state's minimum markup law, which requires selling certain products, including gasoline, by a certain price above its wholesale price.

Tiffany has said he supports repealing the law, called the Unfair Sales Act, in its entirety, on gas, as well as on tobacco and alcohol.

Crowley has said he supports eliminating the markup on gas. At Riemer’s farm, he said the savings to customers at the pump would amount to “north of 40 cents a gallon.”

Matthew Hauser, president of the Wisconsin Fuel and Retail Association, disputed that getting rid of the law would lead to such drops in costs.

The price of crude oil is the largest mover of gasoline prices, with its costs accounting for just over half of the price of gasoline in 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Other factors include costs to distribute and market, refining costs, and federal and state taxes, underlying costs which Hauser said a repeal would not change.

He noted the law, first passed in 1939 to counter large companies undercutting smaller ones, applies to the wholesale cost of fuel, not its retail price. The law also lets gas stations sell under that floor to meet the price of competitors.

Any savings would not be immediate and would fall “well short” of the savings the candidates were touting, Hauser said.