Politics
Dems keep beating Republicans on affordability. Our new poll shows why.
New polling shows many Americans have begun to blame President Donald Trump for the high costs they’re feeling across virtually every part of their lives — and it’s shifting politics.
Almost half — 46 percent — say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can ever remember it being, a view held by 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters. Americans also say that the affordability crisis is Trump’s responsibility, with 46 percent saying it is his economy now and his administration is responsible for the costs they struggle with.
Those are among the new results from The POLITICO Poll that crystallize a growing warning sign for Republicans ahead of next year’s midterms: Some of the very groups that powered Trump’s victory last year are showing signs of breaking from that coalition, and it’s the high cost of living that’s driving them away.
It’s a growing vulnerability that Democrats exploited repeatedly in recent months, with campaigns focused on affordability sweeping key races in last month’s elections in New Jersey and Virginia and powering an overperformance in a deep-red House seat in Tennessee on Tuesday.
“This is a small warning, but it’s one that Republicans need to understand, is that to hold the House in 2026, it’s going to be an all-hands-on-deck effort,” GOP strategist Ford O’Connell said after the Tennessee election, where Republican Matt Van Epps beat Democrat Aftyn Behn by 9 points, but underperformed against Trump’s 22-point margin in 2024.
One year ago, Trump’s economic message helped him piece together a diverse winning coalition, fueling his return to the White House amid widespread frustration over spiraling inflation.
Then Trump, after campaigning against Joe Biden, inherited the economy he spent months attacking, and both parties were anticipating the moment when voters would begin to turn their blame to the new incumbent.
Almost one year into Trump’s term, that shift is well underway.
The Blue Light News Poll, conducted by Public First, found that despite Trump’s continued support among the Republican base, his softest supporters — the ones the GOP most needs to hold onto next year — are expressing concern.
Republicans were already worried about how they can turn out lower-propensity voters during a midterm cycle when Trump himself is not on the ballot. Now Democrats are also trying to peel away their voters by focusing aggressively on affordability, which remains a top priority for 56 percent of Americans, according to The Blue Light News Poll. As was the case in November, affordability was central to the Tennessee special election, with Behn repeatedly centering her campaign on an affordability pitch.
“Republicans have long had the advantage on dealing with the economy, but if [it] remains in the doldrums and prices remain high, it’s harder to find a good job, they will blame the party in power, and that’s Republicans,” said Arizona-based Republican strategist Barrett Marson.
Republicans’ growing vulnerabilities on the economy represent a stark inversion on an issue that has long defined the GOP, and presents an emerging splintering in Trump’s 2024 winning coalition as his party heads into a high-stakes midterm fight.
Three-quarters of Trump voters say they trust the Republican Party over Democrats to reduce the overall cost of living. But his numbers are far weaker among those who say they voted for him, but do not identify as “MAGA Republicans” — 61 percent, compared to 88 percent of MAGA-aligned voters — pointing to a possible weak spot in his coalition.
Even among Trump voters a meaningful portion — nearly 1 in 5 — say Trump holds full responsibility for the state of the current economy.
The White House disputes that Trump is losing ground on the economy. “Cleaning up Joe Biden’s economic disaster has been a Day One priority for President Trump,” spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.
“President Trump is just getting started implementing the policies that created historic economic prosperity in his first term, and Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come.”
Americans agree that affordability is their top priority, and they hold Trump responsible for addressing it
Across parties, age groups, races, genders and income levels, Americans say the cost of living is the nation’s top problem, The Blue Light News Poll finds, a sign that the economy will again overshadow other political topics in next year’s midterms.
The poll underscores just how pervasive the affordability crisis cuts across Americans’ everyday lives. A 45 percent plurality list grocery costs as the most challenging things to afford, followed by 38 percent who say housing costs and 34 percent who say health care. (Respondents could select multiple responses.)
Forty-three percent of Americans — including 31 percent of Trump voters — say there is less economic opportunity in the U.S. now than there has been in the past.
Other indicators present a similarly bleak view: Consumer sentiment fell in November to one of its lowest levels on record, according to the University of Michigan.
And while Trump frequently points to his predecessor to deflect blame for inflation and high prices, the survey reveals that defense is starting to crack.
More Americans say Trump holds most or all responsibility for the economy (46 percent) than say Biden does (29 percent).
“Voters aren’t going to go, ‘I voted for Trump to better the economy, but Biden just hamstrung [him] too much,’” Marson said. “Voters are going to very quickly forget about Joe Biden and just as quickly turn their ire to Trump unless things get better.”
The survey underscores how Trump is now running into the kinds of economic headwinds that dogged Biden and the Democratic Party during the 2024 campaign.
While inflation rates have fallen from a high of 9.1 percent during the Biden administration to roughly 3 percent last month, voters’ frustration with the cost of living has remained elevated.
Biden repeatedly pointed to job growth to argue the economy was strong, even as prices rose. Now Republicans — who repeatedly hammered Biden over his handling of affordability concerns — are increasingly concerned that Trump is taking a similar tact.
“It’s striking to see President Trump make the same mistake,” said Michael Strain, the director of Economic Policy Studies at the historically conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
Voters say Trump isn’t doing enough, and it’s fracturing his coalition
The survey shows that there is a limit to how long Trump voters are willing to give him to deliver on a core campaign pledge. Already, 1 in 5 say he has had a chance to change the economy but has not taken it, underscoring how an issue that helped Trump form his coalition is now splitting it.
A significant portion of Trump’s voters last year did not come from his base — more than a third, 38 percent, self-identified as not being a “MAGA Republican” in the survey — and those voters are more likely than self-identified MAGA Republicans to hold a pessimistic view of Trump’s handling of the economy.
Among non-MAGA Trump voters, 29 percent say Trump has had a chance to change things in the economy but hasn’t taken it — more than double the 11 percent of MAGA voters who say Trump had not taken his opportunity.
Non-MAGA Republicans were also much more likely than MAGA voters to say the Trump administration is more responsible for the things they find difficult to afford, including grocery costs, utility bills and health care costs.
Democrats are eager to take advantage of the shifting politics of affordability and make the 2026 midterms a referendum on Trump’s economic record — and plan to link GOP candidates up and down the ballot to his policies.
Democrats from New York to Georgia zeroed in on affordability to propel them to victory in last month’s elections, and many party leaders believe it’s a playbook that candidates should follow closely next year.
“House Republicans should 100 percent expect to see ads next year calling them out for their broken promise to lower prices and for supporting Trump’s tariffs,” CJ Warnke, a spokesperson for the Democratic super PAC House Majority PAC, said in a statement.
Republicans, for their part, argue they’re the ones focused on reducing costs. “While Democrats are fighting amongst themselves on who can be the next Zohran Mamdani socialist, Republicans are laser-focused on lowering costs, rebuilding prosperity, and delivering relief for the middle class,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.
Trump allies also say he’s making an affordability pitch, even if voters aren’t yet feeling improvements in their daily lives. But Trump himself has sent mixed messages on the issue.
On Saturday, he posted on Truth Social about drug prices that he claimed are falling so fast Republicans should easily win the midterms, declaring: “I AM THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT.”
Days later, he said “affordability” is a “Democrat scam” and “con job” during a Tuesday Cabinet meeting.
“They just say the word,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything to anybody. They just say it — affordability. I inherited the worst inflation in history, there was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything.”
NEW YORK — As South Korea’s largest automobile manufacturer, Hyundai Motor Group is known for its cars. But now, as one of FIFA’s longest-running commercial partners, it’s using the World Cup stage to announce a new focus: robots.
That ambition is clearly laid out in the FIFA Museum presented by Hyundai in New York City. At the iconic 50 Rockefeller Plaza, a robot dog greets visitors at the entrance, nodding its head up and down and shaking its hind. Another humanoid robot, referred to as Atlas, strikes a pose by the door. Above that door, there’s a banner of Atlas rejoicing with its arms up. Inside the building, Atlas stands with a soccer ball in its hands — it’s a popular photo spot with children.
And once inside the elevator leading up to the exhibition hall, the closing doors reveal yet another picture of Atlas, merged into the iconic image of Diego Maradona hoisting the World Cup trophy in 1986. The robots, they are everywhere.
Aside from the museum, Hyundai has also released a five-part documentary on teaching Atlas to play soccer as part of its World Cup marketing. And to cement the role of its robots in the tournament, a number of its robot dogs have been deployed in stadiums to patrol the area for added security.
The incessant display of robots is meant to send a message: Hyundai is now a robotics company — and it wants the world to know. What better place to advertise that than the largest sporting event on the planet?
Hyundai’s robotics ambitions began in earnest in 2020, when the automaker agreed to acquire a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics, the company behind Atlas and the dog-like robot Spot. Since then, the company has increasingly positioned itself as more than a carmaker, describing robotics as a core pillar of its future and investing in robots that can automate factory work and assist with other industrial tasks. The World Cup campaign is the latest step in that bid.
The effort, of course, is not without controversy. Hyundai’s plan to stock its factories in South Korea with robots has met strong resistance from its union, which fears that the humanoid robots will one day replace factory workers. As talks to negotiate wages and the deployment of these robots has stalled, the union overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to authorize a strike. Industrial action from the union, which is considered one of the largest and most influential in South Korea, would be a blow for Hyundai and cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.
That labor dispute is notable because it could land in the U.S. as well: Hyundai plans to deploy its Atlas humanoid robots in the U.S. by 2028, starting with the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia, ultimately deploying more than 25,000 robots.
It’s why the PR push for Atlas during the World Cup is so crucial to Hyundai. Hyundai Motor Group is one of FIFA’s select group of global sponsors, ensuring that no other automakers can advertise at official World Cup locations worldwide. When Hyundai renewed its sponsorship contract with FIFA in 2023, it included Boston Dynamics to “showcase future mobility solutions,” as a press release put it at the time.
Within the FIFA Museum, visitors look at the robots with awe rather than the fear associated with job loss and an uncertain future. At a table dedicated to miniature Atlas figures recreating iconic goal celebration poses — Lionel Messi raising his fingers to the sky, Son Heung-min making a camera gesture, Cristiano Ronaldo throwing his arms down — people lean in to take pictures, widening their eyes at the display.
“Mobility and robotics turn every match into a glimpse of new talent, energy, and possibilities,” a nearby sign about Hyundai’s future reads — a promise of optimism that can only be bottled inside the World Cup bubble.
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LOS ANGELES — Despite months of controversy beforehand, Friday’s encounter in Seattle did not turn out to be much of a “Pride Match” at all. Expressions of sexual and gender identity were sparse in the crowd, perhaps due to the random lottery pairing of Iran and Egypt, which have two of the world’s least hospitable societies and most repressive governments towards LGBT people.
Chance has produced a political pairing today that has a much stronger political claim to a “Pride Match” designation: the opening round-of-32 fixture in Los Angeles this afternoon. Canada and South Africa will meet because of the tournament’s bracket architecture, but they are parallel pioneers in gay and lesbian rights — the first two non-European countries to legalize same-sex marriage.
Canada got there first. Courts in its most populous provinces began to rule in 2003 that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, making it possible for gay men and lesbians to marry in much of the country. In 2005, the Liberal Party government led by Prime Minister Paul Martin introduced the Civil Marriage Act, creating a single legal standard for all provinces and territories. It passed a parliamentary vote on July 19, 2005, and became law the next day — placing Canada alongside the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain as the only countries that allowed same-sex marriage nationwide.
South Africa joined them the following year. In December 2005, the Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled that the common-law definition of marriage violated the equal-protection promises of the country’s post-apartheid constitution, which specifically protect people from discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation.” After the court essentially ordered Parliament to rewrite the law, lawmakers drafted the Civil Union Act, which passed and became law on November 30, 2006.
Now more than three dozen countries allow same-sex unions, including the World Cup’s three North American co-hosts and all of the tournament favorites including Argentina, France, Brazil, Germany, Portugal and England (which along with Wales legalized them in 2014). South Africa, however, remains the only country in Africa.
Canada and South Africa have different constitutional regimes and cultural traditions, but one person links their shared arc as pioneers in LGBTQ+ rights: Montreal human-rights attorney Irwin Cotler, who served on Nelson Mandela’s legal team before becoming Canada’s justice minister. In that role, he was the driving force with Martin’s government to codify same-sex unions through the Civil Marriage Act.
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