President Trump is road-testing his message on the economy and affordability this evening in a speech at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in a swing district in eastern Pennsylvania. The political world is watching to see how he responds to economic anxieties and continued cost-of-living concerns — whether he can stay on message and convey some empathy or winds up once again downplaying those voter fears and insisting that his economy is golden.
“I have no higher priority than making America affordable again,” Trump told a cheering crowd. “That’s what we’re going to do. And again, they caused the high prices, and we’re bringing them down. It’s a simple message.”
Trump acknowledged that his message was crafted with next year’s midterms in mind — and he has made clear that he thinks much of the GOP’s problem lies in messaging rather than financial reality.
Voters don’t see it that way. Polls have found Americans to be unhappy about the state of the economy, upset about the high cost of living and displeased with Trump’s handling of both. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released Monday found that 55% of voters say the economy is on the wrong track, 57% think the economy is shrinking, 57% say Trump is losing the battle against inflation and 55% say his policies will make inflation worse. A Politico poll last week found that 46% say the cost of living is the worst they can remember it being.
Yet in an interview with Politico on Monday, Trump gave himself sky-high marks on the economy. “A-plus,” he said when asked to grade himself. Then he amended his answer: “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”
Since Democrats scored election wins last month by running campaigns focused on affordability, Trump and Republicans are trying to respond to those cost concerns and mitigate further political fallout ahead of next year’s midterm elections — though they are struggling to decide how best to address economic anxieties and have not been able to coalesce behind a plan to deal with healthcare costs.
Trump on Monday announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers hurt in large part by his trade policies, and he continue to defend his tariffs and insist that they are working as planned. But the president has also been on the defensive about the affordability issue, alternately dismissing it as a Democratic “hoax” and “con job” and calling it a problem he inherited from the Biden administration.
“He finds himself in roughly the place Mr. Biden did in early 2024: Telling the American people that they are doing great, when many don’t feel that way,” David Sanger writes in The New York Times. “He has dismissed talk of high prices at grocery stores, insisting they are coming down.”
But Americans know full well what they’re paying for their ground chuck, gallon of milk, tank of gas or utility bill. Prices for many goods and services have risen since Trump returned to office in January. Overall, inflation stood at 3% for the 12 months through September, the latest government data available. That’s the same annual rate as in January.
Still, Trump and the GOP’s new focus on affordability — whether the president embraces the word or not — might be starting to pay off: A new Reuters poll found that Trump’s approval rating edged up from 38% late last month to a slightly less dismal 41% over the past week, helped by stronger numbers from Republicans.
“Trump's performance on the cost of living, where he got a 31% approval rating, is among his weakest popularity scores. But that was up from 26% in late November,” Reuters reports. “A 10-percentage-point gain among Republicans boosted his number, and 69% of Republicans rated him favorably on the issue.”
The bottom line: The White House is reportedly planning to have Trump talk about his economic agenda at events across the country starting early next year. Tonight’s event may illustrate whether that’s a wise strategy or not.