Dec 13 – When Ron Dailey goes out to eat, he’s shocked by costs on the menu. “Breakfast is $20 no matter how you slice it,” mentioned Dailey, 63, who voted for President Donald Trump in November 2024.
Dailey, a Denver-area resident who works for a human sources outsourcing options agency, thinks “the back-and-forthing of the tariffs” sowed market uncertainty, pushing up some prices.
However he has seen different costs fall – he lately paid simply $1.74 a gallon for fuel. General, he charges Trump an 8 out of 10 on his dealing with of the price of dwelling.
“There’s nothing the president has a magic wand on,” mentioned Dailey, who believes the president’s tariffs and deregulatory agenda will finally decrease most on a regular basis prices.
Affordability is entrance and middle in voters’ minds as each events gear up for subsequent yr’s congressional midterm elections, with Republicans notably involved that persevering with excessive costs may damage their possibilities to retain management of Congress.
After campaigning final yr on guarantees to tame inflation, Trump has in latest weeks alternated between dismissing affordability issues as a hoax, blaming President Joe Biden for them, and promising his financial insurance policies will profit Individuals subsequent yr.
In interviews, a gaggle of 20 Trump voters from across the nation whom Reuters has spoken with month-to-month since February revealed how excessive prices are impacting their lives, and the place they lay the blame. Reuters requested the voters to price the Trump administration’s strategy towards affordability on a scale of 1 to 10. Six of the 20 voters gave it a rating of 5 or decrease, and just one rated it greater than 8.
However a majority of the voters staunchly supported the president, predicting that his insurance policies would enhance their buying energy in the long run or saying he had little management over on a regular basis prices. Most of them blamed bigger structural points within the U.S. economic system – oligopolies, company greed, extreme cash provide – for the rising price of dwelling.
BREEDING ANXIETY
Their views roughly match the outcomes of latest polls. Almost three-quarters of Trump voters who responded to a Reuters-Ipsos ballot in early December mentioned they accepted of the president’s dealing with of the price of dwelling, in comparison with 30% of all respondents. The determine for Trump voters was a ten proportion level leap from a smaller November ballot.
Nonetheless, Republicans concern they’re susceptible on the economic system forward of subsequent yr’s elections, with independents extra skeptical of the president’s financial insurance policies. Trump hit the highway this week to tout his cost-reducing efforts to audiences, starting with a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
“I have no higher priority than making America affordable again,” Trump mentioned on the rally, the place he took credit score for bringing down gasoline and vitality prices and the worth of eggs. He blamed Biden for top costs on different items, although Trump has now been in workplace for nearly a yr.
Authorities information exhibits that job development has slowed throughout Trump’s second time period, unemployment has risen to its highest degree in 4 years and client costs stay excessive. General, the economic system’s development has rebounded considerably after it contracted in the course of the first few months of the yr.
Eight of the voters interviewed by Reuters reported rising costs at their native eating places and grocery shops, particularly for meat and occasional, though a handful reported meals costs have been down, and 11 mentioned they’d seen dips in the price of gasoline of their space.
A number of complained that Trump had executed too little to handle such points and that his signature tariffs had been inexpertly deployed, unnecessarily elevating costs for Individuals.
Loretta Torres, 38, a mom of three close to Houston, gave Trump an 8 however mentioned vacation buying had been more durable this yr as a result of tariffs had doubled or tripled some costs. “I would definitely hope to see those tariffs go down and improve over time,” she mentioned.
Gerald Dunn, 67, a martial arts teacher in New York’s Hudson Valley who rated Trump a 6 on affordability, agreed. “Don’t just throw tariffs out there just for no reason. That hurts the economy because uncertainty breeds anxiety,” Dunn mentioned.
Different voters, nevertheless, mentioned they’d not seen any value will increase as a result of tariffs. Terry Alberta, 64, a pilot in Michigan, famous that U.S. customers on Black Friday spent a report sum of money on-line.
“People are saying they’re hurting, but apparently they’re not hurting” sufficient to curb such spending, Alberta mentioned. “To bash on the administration and say, ‘Oh, these tariffs are horrible’ and everything, it’s like, then why are we still buying things?”
CAPS ON CORPORATE GREED
No matter how they rated Trump, most voters blamed personal firms and macroeconomic components for climbing the price of primary items and companies.
Whereas the 20 voters should not a statistically consultant portrait of all Trump voters, their ages, academic backgrounds, races/ethnicities, areas and voting histories roughly correspond to these of Trump’s total citizens. They have been chosen from 429 respondents to a February 2025 Ipsos ballot who mentioned they voted for Trump in November and have been prepared to talk to a reporter.
Don Jernigan, 75, a retiree in Virginia Seashore, rated Trump a 4 on affordability for not doing sufficient to examine oligopolies.
In industries like meatpacking, “you have such large corporations covering such large portions of our supply chain of products,” Jernigan mentioned. “The small guys are totally regulated out of the system, and I haven’t seen anything happen to change that.”
In Georgia, David Ferguson, 54, mentioned he hoped Trump would use govt orders to push laws capping earnings in fields resembling medical insurance, blaming a “feeding frenzy” of dominant firms for top prices.
Lou Nunez, an 83-year-old retired Military veteran in Des Moines, Iowa, additionally pointed to the truth that premium funds for Obamacare well being plans will double if U.S. lawmakers don’t prolong pandemic-era subsidies by yr’s finish.
Bloomberg through Getty Photographs
“That’s something that certainly the president, if he chose, he could probably get Congress to pass those subsidies, but I think he’s pretty set against it,” mentioned Nunez, who rated Trump a 2 on affordability.
“I don’t think he’s done a whole lot (to improve the) prices of anything,” Nunez added.
‘DRILL, BABY, DRILL’
A standard chorus, particularly amongst voters who gave Trump excessive marks total, was that the president lacks the facility to instantly decrease prices.
Kate Mottl, 62, of the Chicago suburbs, and Wealthy Somora, 62, in Charlotte, North Carolina, who rated the president 8 and 6 respectively, repeated certainly one of Trump’s marketing campaign mottos, “drill, baby, drill,” suggesting that opening up extra U.S. territory to grease and fuel extraction would assist decrease the price of dwelling.
Each additionally underscored that Trump was restricted in his capability to immediately cut back costs. Mottl mentioned she wish to see costs drop on groceries and utilities, however was “very optimistic” about Trump’s financial management. “There’s just so much he can do in the almost a year that he’s been in office,” she mentioned.
“A lot of it is policy change, and a lot of that has to go through Congress,” Somora mentioned.
Will Brown, 20, a pupil in Madison, Wisconsin, blamed present inflation on the Biden administration’s federal spending initiatives which pumped money into the U.S. cash provide.
Though Brown mentioned meat costs have been “egregious” and housing prices have been out of attain for a lot of Individuals, he gave the president a 7 on affordability.
Fixing inflation and the excessive price of dwelling is “easy to say, but it’s hard to do,” Brown mentioned.
(Reporting by Julia Harte in New York; modifying by Paul Thomasch and Claudia Parsons)
