“We are the ones that have done a great job on affordability… but we just lost an election, they said, based on affordability,” Trump said Nov. 6.
Could GOP election losses impact next year’s midterms?
The GOP suffered losses across the country in off-year contests. Do the results send a message about the Democratic Party? Here’s what we know.
This is President Donald Trump’s economy, and he wants everyone to know it.
Two days after Democrats rode concerns about consumer costs to big election wins in Virginia, New Jersey, and other parts of the country, the second-term Republican president tried to reclaim the economy as one of his administration’s bedrock efforts.
“We are the ones that have done a great job on affordability, not the Democrats,” Trump said Nov. 6 while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, adding: “But we just lost an election, they said, based on affordability.”
Trump’s comments came after Democrats won governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia, and the New York City mayor’s race, on Nov. 4 with candidates who focused heavily on affordability, including energy prices in New Jersey and high rents in New York City.
Their commanding victories − both new governors won by double digits − put persistently high consumer costs under Trump’s administration in the spotlight and sounded alarm bells for the GOP, prompting Republicans such as former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to say the party needs to focus more on bringing down costs.
Democrats are signaling that they plan to keep hammering on affordability concerns heading into the 2026 midterms as Trump tries to maintain GOP control of Congress. The Democratic National Committee said in a Nov. 5 statement that the victories provide “a winning playbook” heading into 2026.
The president won in 2024 talking about inflation and the economy, but many Americans aren’t happy with his economic agenda. Polling indicates voters are uneasy about Trump’s economic stewardship amid trade wars, a sluggish job market and ongoing cost-of-living concerns.
More than 7 in 10 U.S. adults rate current economic conditions as either “poor” or “very poor,” and 61% say Trump’s policies have worsened the economy, according to a CNN/SSRS survey released this week.
Despite those concerns, the president has painted a rosy picture of the economy and consumer issues.
Trump repeatedly has said inflation is no longer a problem. “Every price is down,” Trump declared Nov. 6 during the Oval Office event.
Yet inflation has increased in recent months and was at 3% in September, a relatively modest level but above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target rate. The debate over affordability is primed to be a marquee issue heading into 2026.
Vice President JD Vance said after the election that “We need to focus on the home front.”
“We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond,” Vance wrote on social media.