As President Donald Trump campaigned for the nation’s highest office in 2024, he regularly blamed Democrats for the country’s economic anxiety.
During campaign stops across the U.S., Trump frequently asked voters if they were better off than they were four years prior
At the time, his message appeared to land: In an election centered on inflation and the cost of living, Trump won every swing state and the nationwide popular vote. Two years later, voters grappling with those same kitchen-table issues took away much of his party’s power in Washington and in states across the country. Democrats rode a blue wave of historic proportions in Tuesday’s midterm election to flip everything from battleground congressional seats to long-held Republican governorships.
The Democratic Party will now have control of both the House and Senate, ending the Republican Party’s trifecta of power in the federal government. Nearly nine out of 10 voters in the CNBC Voter Poll said the cost of living was a crucial or major factor in their vote for Congress. Participants in the poll ranked the economy as the most important issue facing the country during the midterm election, ahead of topics like the state of democracy and immigration.