Trump and Affordability

Back in June, Zohran Mamdani created a bit of a shock when he won the New York City Democratic mayoral primary. Mamdani's leading opponent, former governor Andrew Cuomo, had run on what might be described as a conventional centrist Democratic platform, emphasizing plans to reduce crime and support the police while promoting his experience as a political leader. Mamdani, on the other hand, narrowly focused on affordability. Almost his entire platform dealt with ways to make living in the city cheaper and more affordable. The potency of affordability as a campaign issue should not have been that much of a surprise. Even cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump had campaigned heavily on the issue. Who can forget how important the price of eggs had been to Trump's campaign? Yet, observers, especially among centrist Democrats, were more likely to attribute Trump's victory to Democratic support for transgender rights than to affordability. Mamdani's victory reawakened Democrats to the importance of affordability as a political issue.

When Cuomo chose to run as an independent in New York City's general election, he briefly attempted to focus on affordability as well. But that had already been established as Mamdani's lane, and Cuomo quickly turned to mostly negative attacks on Mamdani and attempting to convince voters that Mamdani would not be able to deliver on his plans. Meanwhile, Democratic candidates in other races, such as Mikie Sherrill, who was running for governor in New Jersey, and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, also took up affordability as an issue. Just before the election, Politico ran an article headlined, "Spanberger turns Virginia's governor's race into a test of Trump's economy". After winning, Sherrill announced a platform for her administration that stressed affordability.

Running on affordability is simultaneously obvious and perhaps a bit surprising. It is obvious because for as long as I can remember, "It's the economy, stupid" has been a fundamental theme of campaigns. But for Democrats to adopt this message now was not necessarily expected because Trump, for all of his faults, was believed to be able to create a strong economy. The stock market, for instance, has been booming. But Trump's proclaimed economic expertise was, like so much else about him, a myth. Trump inherited an economy that had been proclaimed the "envy of the world," but he had set about systematically destroying it. Trump's tariffs raised prices for consumers and cut off markets for producers. The tariffs that he claimed would increase U.S. manufacturing were actually driving more manufacturers offshore. CBS News' MoneyWatch reported last month that "Manufacturers in the U.S. are cutting thousands of jobs even as President Trump pushes economic policies that he says will revitalize the industry." The Hill ran an article headlined, "America’s industrial decline is reaching a point of no return".

As for prices, Trump is having little luck lowering them, or even keeping them stable. NewsNation reported this week that "A Purdue University study expects the average retail price of turkey this Thanksgiving to be about 25 percent more than last year". Trump has been touting the price of Walmart's bundled Thanksgiving dinner, which is 25% lower than last year's. What Trump has ignored is that Walmart's dinner has fewer items this year, and many of last year's name-brand items have been replaced with less expensive store brands. Regardless of what Trump may claim, food inflation is up this year. NewsNation recently ran a report showing that the prices of coffee, ground beef, orange juice, bananas, potato chips, and chicken breast were all up. Trump can make whatever claims he wants to about lowering prices, but consumers know what they are paying at the grocery store.

The day of this month's election, Trump seemed to have caught on that affordability is an important issue. That day he "truthed" on his Truth Social social media network that:

If affordability is you issue, VOTE REPUBLICAN! Energy costs, as and example, are plummeting - Getting close to 2 Dollar a gallon gasoline. When energy goes down, everything else follows, and it has!!! President DJT

Needless to say, the average price for gas is nowhere near $2 a gallon; it's actually $3 or more. Moreover, Trump seems to consider gasoline to be the sole indicator of "energy" costs. Electricity, for example, is increasing in price almost everywhere in the country.

The next day, Trump "truthed" that "Our Economy is BOOMING, and Costs are coming way down. Affordability is our goal." The same day, Trump "truthed" the fake news about Walmart's Thanksgiving Dinner and added "AFFORDABILITY is a Republican Stronghold. Hopefully, Republicans will use this irrefutable fact!" The day after that, Trump again "truthed" about Walmart's dinner and claimed that "My cost are lower than the Democrats on everything, especially oil and gas! So the Democrats “affordability” issue is DEAD! STOP LYING!!!"

In one of the more humorous efforts by the White House, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a statement touting a report showing that prices were dropping. The source of the claim: DoorDash. Yes, the folks that deliver your carryout meals were being cited as a source of economic data. However, DoorDash itself would not stand behind the White House claims, telling one reporter that "We did not write that" and another that "The White House can use the language that they are using on that. I’m not going to speculate on that."

Trump, during an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News, argued that claims about rising grocery prices were a "con job" and that polls showing that consumers were upset by the economy were “fake." But even Fox News reported that coffee, utilities, electricity, and vehicle repair prices were up. This seemed to frustrate Trump with the entire subject of affordability. Suddenly, he didn't want to talk about it anymore, saying "I don't want to hear about the affordability, because right now we're much less. If you look at energy, we're getting close to $2 a gallon for gasoline." Again, we are not getting close to $2 a gallon for gasoline. Trump then defended his statement that he didn't want to talk about affordability by saying, "The reason I don't want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows it's far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden, and the prices are way down."

Trump administration officials, for their part, seemed to understand that they could not argue against reality. They took the tactic of blaming former President Joe Biden's administration for higher prices. When Peter Navarro was confronted with the reality of higher grocery prices on NewsNation, his response was, "We feel your pain. We are literally doing everything we can" before blaming Biden for the situation. Ironically, he then argued that "Now, instead of having an honest discussion about the various elements of inflation, it's about who to blame— whether it's Biden's inflation or our inflation." Similarly, Scott Bessent argued that "The American people are gonna start feeling better. But look, this has been a tough period ... I think 2026 will be a blockbuster year." The message from the White House appeared to be that everything is great, claims about higher prices are a con job, but if there is any inflation, it is Biden's fault, and things will be better next year.

Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier summed up the situation succinctly, saying:

None of this is complicated. The GOP ran on affordability in 2024. They gave sanctimonious lectures on cable news on election night about how the "silent working class majority" had spoken. Then they governed as reckless authoritarians, punishing the working class.

Right now, Trump is in danger of being hoisted by his own petard. He campaigned on the price of eggs. While eggs may cost somewhat less today, almost everything else is more expensive. Once taking office, Trump did not concern himself about affordability, instead focusing on international events, a new ballroom, and even a new bathroom. His domestic policy has mostly consisted of terrorizing Democratic cities with ICE and Border Patrol agents running wild, grabbing migrants and U.S. citizens alike off the streets. When victories by Mamdani, Sherrill, and Spanberger demonstrated that affordability remains a powerful political issue, Trump briefly attempted to convince the American public that they should not believe their own eyes. Now, he doesn't want to talk about it anymore while his advisors are blaming Biden and asking for patience until things get better.