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WASHINGTON — Ahead of Tuesday’s elections, Donald Trump assured Americans that prices are coming down, the economy is picking up and the nation is flourishing in ways that make it the world’s envy.
Voters don’t seem to be buying it.
Democrats swept key races, as exit polls depicted an electorate gripped by fears that the U.S. is careening in the wrong direction, far from Trump’s glowing portrait of a nation ascendant.
Trump’s argument that he’s making groceries, gas and other ordinary household necessities easier to afford has failed to take hold, the exit survey suggested. On Election Day, he posted that the price of gas was falling to nearly $2 a gallon. (Nationally, the average price is more than $3 a gallon, according to AAA.)
“When energy goes down, everything else follows, and it has!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Yet NBC News exit polls showed that most voters in Tuesday’s elections said they were either holding steady or “falling behind” in their personal finances. In both Virginia and New Jersey, the percentage of voters who said they were “falling behind” was about twice that of voters who said they were getting ahead.
“I will give the president some credit that inflation has been holding around 2.5%, but people in my district are really struggling,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said in an interview. “Rent and home prices continue to go up. The price of food continues to go up.”
“Overall,” she added, “the cost of living is a problem and I’ve been talking about this for months. The economy is extremely important, and I think that was a significant factor in the elections.”
Georgia — a swing state that Trump won in 2024 but lost in 2020 — is at risk of losing Republican congressional seats in the midterm elections next year, she said.
Trump’s electoral strength springs from the emotional bond he forged with working-class voters. He thrilled his supporters in the 2024 election when, in an attempt to troll his opponent Kamala Harris, he doffed his suit jacket, bundled himself in an apron and manned a French fry station at a Philadelphia-area McDonald’s.
Now, though, Trump risks appearing detached from the same forgotten slice of the electorate that he successfully mobilized in past elections.
He gave a campaign-style speech on the economy on Wednesday, not at a small business or family farm, but at a forum for business leaders in a Miami sports arena. The top ticket package was $10,000; it sold out before the event.
Trump seems especially proud of his use of tariffs to juice the economy, frequently touting his trade efforts. By making it more costly to buy goods from overseas, he’s betting that more companies will invest in the U.S., fueling a job boom.
But voters don’t seem persuaded. Part of the reason may be muddled messaging, a former White House official said; Trump also uses tariffs as a cudgel against world leaders who defy him, leaving voters confused about how, exactly, tariffs are improving lives at home.
“On tariffs, they’ve got to do a better job of messaging why tariffs work for America,” Michael Dubke, White House communications director in Trump’s first term, said in an interview. “Not because they allow him to negotiate and hold foreign powers to account — how do they benefit the average American? And they’ve done a piss-poor job of that and they have to improve it.”
Overall, only 34% of registered voters believe the Trump administration has lived up to expectations on the economy, while 63% say it has fallen short, an NBC News poll taken late last month shows.
The government shutdown has threatened the social safety net that ensures that millions of Americans don’t go hungry. In a social media post on Tuesday, Trump invoked the food stamp program as leverage in his showdown with Democrats over reopening the government. He wrote that the program, known as SNAP, was bloated and the benefits would be withheld unless Democrats relented and voted to reopen the government. (A White House spokesperson later said that the administration would comply with a court order requiring that benefits be paid out).
Trump has visited his golf clubs in West Palm Beach, Florida, and outside Washington, D.C., a total of five times since the shutdown began on Oct. 1. In 2014, a year before he entered the race for president, he posted a note on social media assailing Barack Obama for playing golf despite “all the problems and difficulties facing the U.S.”
Last week, Trump returned from a trip to Asia, where he solidified economic concessions like renewed soybean purchases from China and $350 billion in investments from South Korea. Heads of state were also eager to impress the president, lavishing him with gifts. Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaishi, gave him a gold leaf golf ball, combining two of Trump’s passions.
“We didn’t elect the president to go out there and travel the world and end the foreign wars,” Greene said. “We elected the president to stop sending tax dollars and weapons for foreign wars — to completely not engage anymore. And watching the foreign leaders come to the White House through a revolving door is not helping Americans. It’s not reducing the cost of living. It’s doing nothing about health insurance premiums. It’s doing nothing to solve the problems that are really plaguing vulnerable segments of our population, especially young people.”
Over the weekend, Trump appeared at a “Great Gatsby”-themed party at his Mar-a-Lago resort, an event that produced a viral video of a partially dressed woman dancing in an oversized martini glass. Guests mingled at the oceanside estate — some in Roaring ‘20s attire — at a time when many furloughed federal employees are working without pay.
“Somebody wasn’t thinking very clearly when they scheduled the Mar-a-Lago party,” Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker and Trump ally, said in an interview. “I’ll leave it at that.”
A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed criticism of the party.
“It’s a Halloween party,” the official said. “We aren’t supposed to celebrate Halloween?”
The official also noted that the traveling press pool was invited in to view the party, demonstrating that no one was trying to hide it.
In recent months, Trump has appeared focused on White House décor and ending foreign wars. He’s made no secret that he’d like to win the Nobel Peace Prize next year, an honor denied to him in October. But his party’s political fate may hinge instead on pocketbook issues like the cost of groceries, gas and health insurance.
The Democrats’ sweeping victory on Tuesday may have made an impression on Trump and his GOP allies, who must retain control of Congress next year for their agenda to advance.
On Wednesday, Trump posted on Truth Social that “affordability is our goal.” That was the second time in two days he’d mentioned the word “affordability” — and only the fourth time he’d used the word in his social media posts since the start of his second term on Jan. 20.
“We need to keep fighting for lower interest rates, for less government spending and for prices to continue to go down — whether it’s gasoline or food or utilities,” John McLaughlin, a Trump pollster, said in an interview. “We have to fight for those things and point out that Democrats are on the other side. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Peter Nicholas is a senior White House reporter for NBC News.
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