WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump would prefer that voters not worry about inflation. But it’s hard for them to ignore.
Filling up a basic Ford F-150 truck now costs about $100, up $30 from a year ago. Mortgage rates have jumped to levels that have depressed home sales. And for the past 12 months, consumer prices have risen faster than paychecks, making the average family poorer.
One week before midterm elections that will serve as a referendum on his second term, Trump is struggling to deliver on his campaign promise to bring down costs, even as he insists the country has entered an economic “golden age.” The same frustration that powered his comeback two years ago could now cost Republicans control of Congress.
“Our nation is doing better now than ever before,” Trump insists while campaigning, vowing that interest rates and oil prices will plunge once the war with Iran — which he started — comes to an end.
The word “affordability,” he says, is nothing but “a con job by the Democrats,” adding that “it doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”
Trump’s rosy rhetoric meets voters’ reality
That rhetoric comes as voters say they’re struggling to afford basics like fuel and groceries and as they blame Trump for higher costs, pointing to the Republican president’s aggressive tariff policies and the ongoing, unpopular war with Iran.
Record-high diesel prices, in particular, have driven up shipping and farming costs, creating trouble for Republicans in typically conservative states such as Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Texas, where Democrats appear uniquely competitive in races that will shape Trump’s final two years in office.
“The costs of things are absolutely the first thing people talk about, but also it’s their pay not keeping up with the cost,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “It’s a double whammy.”
Prices at the pump have become a preeminent issue for voters.
“People hate paying more money for gas, and the prices have gone up a lot,” said Stephen Moore, who has previously advised the president on the economy. “It’s frustrating because Trump’s done so many good things for the economy. But with the Iran situation, that’s really had a big effect on the economy, and Republicans may pay a high price for that.”
Misty Reeder, 48, said she considers herself “in the middle” politically but picked all Democrats on her ballot in Easley, South Carolina.
“I’ve noticed that things have been getting a lot harder,” said Reeder, who receives disability payments. “You hear about it everywhere you go.”
In the six years that she and her husband have been renting their home, Reeder said their rent had increased by hundreds of dollars.
“Something’s gotta give,” she said. “It’s like a dam — the pressure’s too much, and it’s going to break.”
Sandra Capell, 69, said she wants “to see some change” when it comes to the economy even though she voted Republican in Easley, which is part of South Carolina’s conservative Upstate region.
“I think everybody is kind of suffering when it comes to groceries, gas, everything really,” she said. “I’m looking at the Republican Party to jump on the wagon, get in the saddle and let’s bring it back.”
Beti Rosales, 47, said higher prices have taken a toll on her family’s Mexican restaurant in Allentown, Pennsylvania, part of the Lehigh Valley that has seesawed between the parties in recent years. Limes and avocados cost more than before. So does the plumber who’s occasionally needed.
Two years ago, Rosales decided to give Trump and Republicans a chance, hoping for relief from inflation.
“The reality now is that it actually didn’t get better,” she said. “It actually got worse. The prices of everything have increased.”
Rosales is now considering voting Democratic in the midterms.
“Maybe fresh new faces might make a difference?” she said.
Trump promised he’d bring prices down
While running in 2024, Trump hammered President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the election, for high inflation, which climbed as high as 9.1% in June 2022. He promised voters he would lower gasoline prices and unlock roaring growth.
“With your vote in this election, I will end inflation,” he vowed.
In less than two years, Trump has aggressively remodeled the U.S. economy. He’s slapped double-digit tariffs on many trading partners — including the European Union, India, Japan, Canada and Mexico — and sparked trade wars with allies. The U.S. government now holds stakes in several dozen private companies. He’s signed broad income tax cuts into law.
But the persistent challenge of inflation has continued, overshadowing the positives of continued economic growth and a low unemployment rate. Inflation was 3% when Trump took office and reached 3.7% last month.
The president has played down the intensity of inflation, claiming that it is under 2% and “under control.”
Democrats have seized on the discontent, using the same high cost of living that sank them before to pressure vulnerable Republicans and put congressional districts Trump won by even double digits in play.
“Now remember, they promised to lower prices on Day One. Instead, under the failed President Donald J. Trump, it costs more than ever in American history to fill up your truck, stock your fridge, visit the doctor or power your home,” said Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat running for reelection, at a recent rally in Atlanta.
“You work harder and harder, but the treadmill gets faster and steeper and the bills get higher and higher,” he told the crowd.
Cait Conley, a Democrat running in New York against Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, one of his party’s most vulnerable incumbents, harkened back to his tweet from the last midterm elections, when Biden was president. Lawler had advised voters to “fill up your tank and go grocery shopping — it will inform your decision.”
In a new ad, Conley said voters should follow that advice this year “and then tell me if the system’s working for you.”
“You deserve better. It shouldn’t be this hard,” she says.
Democrats turn Trump’s attacks back on him
Conley and other candidates have pounded on a theme that Democrats believe will be especially effective this cycle: accusing Trump and other Republicans of compounding voters’ economic pain by corruptly pursuing policies that help their billionaire donors at the expense of everyday Americans.
“I know you’re frustrated. Washington politicians get rich while you get hurt. Corporations make huge profits while your costs go up,” North Carolina Senate candidate Roy Cooper says in an ad airing in the competitive state.
That has included a particular focus on the war with Iran.
“Trump’s war abroad costs taxpayers a billion dollars a day on a war we have no business fighting. Our schools crumble, our factories shutter, our gas prices skyrocket. But when they want war, billion-dollar blank checks,” says Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in another spot.
The president “thinks that the economy is doing well because he and his family have enriched themselves to the tune of several billion dollars,” said Amy Richards, 56, a onetime Republican who has voted Democratic since Trump became his party’s 2016 nominee.
“He has zero idea what it is like to receive a paycheck and have to feed yourself and your family,” said Richards, standing outside a polling place in her town of Round Rock, Texas, on Friday, “and he doesn’t care.”
Republicans, meanwhile, have tried to cast Democrats as extreme, pointing to an ascendant populist wing that includes a number of Democratic socialists.
Moore, who advised Trump’s campaigns, said he wished Republicans would spend more time talking about the economy’s strengths, including rising median incomes and a record-setting stock market, even as he acknowledged those numbers might not resonate with voters.
“What matters is how people feel, and clearly people are feeling stressed out financially,” he said.
Some Trump supporters remain satisfied. Renee Blood, 57, an executive assistant in Round Rock, feels the economy has “improved quite well.”
“Of course we see gas prices up and down, but things are much more affordable,” she said.
She plans to vote Republican because she worries things will get worse if Democrats return to power.
Trump’s golden age might not have arrived, she said, but “we are still working on it.”
___
Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Easley, S.C.; Mike Catalini in Allentown, Pa.; and Jesse Bedayn in Round Rock, Texas, contributed to this report.