President Donald Trump said the 2026 midterm elections will center on consumer prices, despite his past characterization of affordability concerns as a political narrative promoted by Democrats.
In an interview with Politico on Friday, Trump said he believes voters in next year’s midterm elections—who will determine control of Congress—will support his administration’s economic agenda.
“I think it’s going to be about the success of our country. It’ll be about pricing,” Trump told the outlet. “Because, you know, they gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down. Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.”
Some of the highest inflation in modern history occurred early in former President Joe Biden’s term, and while the inflation rate fell by the time he left office, prices for many consumer items have remained elevated.
The president’s recent focus on cost-of-living issues follows a series of Democratic victories, where economic concerns played a central role in campaign messaging and voter turnout. But those wins were overwhelmingly in blue cities and states.
Acknowledging the political significance of those issues, however, Trump has stepped up his public engagement on the economy. Earlier this month, he traveled to Pennsylvania, where he promoted his administration’s economic policies and sought to address voter concerns about prices, wages, and household expenses.
“They have a new word. You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is ‘affordability,’” Trump said during a December 9 speech in Mount Pocono.
Democrats have complained that “prices are too high,” Trump noted further. “Yeah, they’re too high because they caused them to be too high. But now they’re coming down.”
The president also voiced support for austerity measures, suggesting that American children should be satisfied with having “one or two” pencils and “two or three” dolls rather than larger quantities of consumer goods.
A day earlier, Trump expressed strong confidence in the state of the U.S. economy, describing it as “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” during an interview with Politico.
Trump’s latest remarks follow a series of economic reports indicating stronger-than-expected performance in recent months, The Independent reported.
According to the most recent Consumer Price Index report from the U.S. Department of Labor, inflation declined to 2.7 percent year over year in November, marking the smallest annual increase since July. Separate government data released this week showed the U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of 4.3 percent, the fastest pace recorded in the past two years.
“You saw the 4.3 percent?” Trump said to Politico on Friday. “The Democrats were exploding. Their heads were exploding.”
“Electricity is down. It’s way down,” Trump added. “You know, when the gasoline goes down and when the oil and gas go down, the electricity comes down naturally. But it’s all coming down. It’s all coming down. It’s coming beautifully.”
One of the most significant challenges facing Americans amid rising living costs is the shortage of affordable, available housing, but Trump is preparing to address the issue with a new policy initiative that could encourage the construction of as many as 12 million new homes, according to a senior adviser familiar with the plan.
“The President has the opportunity in front of him to create possibly the largest housing boom in US history. And I think he has the tools and the personality to accomplish [and] the plans to accomplish it,” Morris Davis, the recently departed Chief Housing Economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told Just the News.
“We think that the President has the capacity with the right plan to create 12 million new houses over the next 10 years. What that will do is make housing attainable for young families,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating, which sank last month, is beginning to rebound nicely, according to pollster Nate Silver and other surveys.
