With national average gas prices still higher than $4, increased inflation and predictions that food could get even more expensive next year, it’s no surprise that affordability is a top issue for voters in the upcoming midterm elections.
A new grassroots survey from Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has found that affordability has indeed become the dominant concern among voters in the most competitive Senate races heading into the 2026 midterms. That’s significant because Democrats are trailing Republicans in those races but polls show that Americans are increasingly leaning towards the Democrats on economic issues.
According to AFP, affordability outweighed “every other issue combined – including immigration, healthcare, crime, and national security,” in the new poll of 42,844 voters sampled on the ground in the seven top Senate races (Alaska, Iowa, Montana, Ohio, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Michigan).
“My grocery bill is up to $300 a week feeding my teenagers,” a man named Donald from Londonderry, New Hampshire, vented to one of the group’s volunteers.
Data released this month by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that food prices have gone up 3% over the past year. New research from JPMorgan suggests that these prices will rise even higher due to conflict in the Middle East.
Early this year, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. had joined Israel to attack Iran. Fighting has now dragged on for months, resulting in blockades of the Strait of Hormuz that impact both oil and fertilizer, putting stress on the global supply chain and making prices go up. Already, Americans were dealing with lingering inflation issues from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the U.S. joined the fighting, gas prices have also ballooned here and Trump’s approval rating has slipped. As of this Tuesday, The Economist estimated his approval rating at 35% and other polls put him at around 35% to 36%. Both The Economist and the Silver Bulletin referred to the president as “unpopular” this week.
New Reuters/Ipsos polling of 951 registered voters conducted over a four-day period ending Monday shows that Democratic Party “has gained a significant edge over Republicans in voter perceptions on which party has a better approach to the cost of living,” as Trump’s approval rating stagnates. Reuters reported that 36% of voters picked Democrats and 28% picked Republicans on these economic issues – an eight-point gap that represents the biggest Democratic advantage since Reuters/Ipsos began asking the question last October.
“I don’t think it’s great for Republicans,” said Republican political consultant Jeanette Hoffman, according to Reuters. Still, she noted that most voters (37%) said they didn’t think either party was better on the issues.
Reuters also said that voters have been signaling all year that the cost of living will be a major deciding factor when it comes to their choices on ballots this November. Every U.S. House seat will be up for election, as well as 35 Senate seats.
“Hoffman said Republican candidates in the midterms need to highlight to voters that their party has addressed affordability by delivering tax cuts, while warning that the Democratic Party is growing more extreme as democratic socialists gain influence,” Reuters said.
Even so – and amid proposals from Democrats like raising the national minimum wage – another Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month showed voters “were picking Democrats over Republicans as better stewards of the economy for the first time in about a decade.”
For Republicans, losing control of either chamber could complicate Trump's agenda in the last two years of his term. While fighting in the Iran war has cooled, Tehran maintains a de facto blockade on oil shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz, keeping global oil prices high and punishing U.S. household finances. Trump said last week no peace talks were scheduled.
Christopher Nicholas, a Republican strategist in Pennsylvania, said Trump has not done enough to address voters’ concerns about the cost of living. Notably, Trump has even called affordability a “Democrat hoax,” and has said that the word “groceries” is an “old-fashioned” term. Reuters said that just half of Republicans approve of his handling of the cost of living as we head towards the midterms.
In June, The Brookings Institution also reported that Trump’s approval was sharply declining in rural America. It said that “polling suggests that the economy lies at the heart of rural Americans’ retreat from the president.”
Current predictions provided by 270 to Win indicate that Democrats could gain seats in the Senate, making it more difficult for Trump and the GOP to pass legislation for the remainder of his term. Robert A. Strong, senior fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia noted in a piece for The Conversation that historical trends also indicate that Republicans will lose seats in the upcoming elections, as the party in control of the White House generally does in the midterms.
