If, after the 8 November midterms, Americans wake up to find their statehouses and congressional seats packed with Republicans who deny the outcome of the 2020 election, participated in the January 6 insurrection and hold extremist views on abortion, they may well have high inflation to thank.
The rising cost of just about everything Americans buy has become a major liability for Democrats fighting to maintain their narrow control of Congress, and a pair of recent surveys has dashed hopes that the trend is fading – or that voters have found a bigger worry.
Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly consumer price data, which indicated inflation remained high in September, even if it was down from earlier this summer. On Monday, a New York Times/Siena College poll showed more voters than ever rank the state of the economy as their top concern, and Republicans have a four-point lead over Democrats when it comes to which party respondents plan to vote for.
“Prices just simply haven’t come down, and I think for a lot of people that’s a reflection of government spending and that there hasn’t been enough action by the Biden administration to tackle inflation,” said Jonathan McCollum, a lobbyist with Davidoff Hutcher & Citron who has advised Democrats on campaign strategy.
“Republicans have spent a tremendous amount of money in advertising, especially in these swing states and just really hitting on inflation over and over and over again, and I think that message has started to break through.”
Beyond just offering a potent line of attack for Republicans, the data undercut the cautious optimism Democrats were feeling over the summer, when some in the party believed circumstances had aligned to spare them from the losses American presidents historically suffer in their first midterms.
Gas prices had dropped from the records highs reached after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rocked global oil markets while many voters were angered by the conservative-dominated supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade and end nearly 50 years of abortion access nationwide.
Democratic candidates were given plenty to campaign on after president Joe Biden and his allies in Congress went on a streak of lawmaking, passing the Inflation Reduction Act to lower prescription drug costs and fight climate crisis, and the Chips Act to boost domestic semiconductor production.
And the president has sought to direct voters’ attention towards the healthy labor market, where the unemployment rate is back where it was before Covid-19 caused tens of millions of job losses.
But as fall arrived, the boost of Biden’s congressional success appears to have worn off, as has the shock over the implications of the rightwing supreme court.
By late September, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Republicans with a slight edge on the generic congressional ballot, and more trusted to handle crime, inflation and the economy, though Democrats were seen as better bets by voters concerned with climate crisis and abortion.
“I think we’re not getting the credit we deserve in many cases. I don’t know whether there’s something we could have done differently,” said congressman Scott Peters, the vice-chair for policy of the centrist New Democrat Coalition in the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, the relief from inflation many Democrats hoped would arrive has not come. Consumer prices rose at a year-on-year rate of 8.2% in September, down from a peak reached in the summer but still a rate comparable only to the early 1980s.
Gas prices may be set for an uptick after the Opec+ block of crude producers decided to cut their output earlier this month, though Biden on Tuesday announced he’d released 15m barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve in an attempt to offset that.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and a former economist in Republican president George W Bush’s administration, said Democrats will simply have to get used to running in a climate of high prices.
“It is baked in the cake,” he said. “There is no rabbit that can be pulled out of any hat that can save them between now and the midterms.”
The Republicans, who are fielding an array of candidates including those who promote Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election, are favored to take the House, though control of the Senate is seen as a far tighter contest.
But for all the parties’ promises to fight inflation, Holtz-Eakin said the Federal Reserve with its ability to hike interest rates is best placed to combat price growth – and neither Congress nor the White House has any comparable ability.
“The inflation fight is in the hands of the Fed, and that’s the reality,” he said. As for Congress, “Do we really want to ask them to do anything? Because they’ll probably make things worse.”
Melissa Morales, president of Democratic Latino voters organization Somos Votantes, has surveyed Americans across the country for the Winning Jobs Narrative Project, aimed at helping progressive politicians reframe how they talk about the economy.
She sees an opening for candidates who talk about the economy in a way that puts workers at the center, and the government in a position to support them and their families.
“There is still a lot of time to win this economic argument,” Morales said. “Voters are searching for answers and if they hear one it will, in my mind, definitely sway the vote.”
Peters believes Democrats can make the case that under their control, Congress approved legislation Republican majorities in the past failed to agree upon, like last year’s nationwide infrastructure overhaul.
“Democrats are going to have continue to remind people that it’s under Democratic leadership that government has worked,” he said. “The frustrating thing for a lot of folks is the Republicans don’t seem to have an answer except to complain.”
