Perfect storm with economy won’t be good for the Dems

With just five weeks until the midterm elections, the country is experiencing a perfect storm within the economy — involving surging inflation, rising interest rates and a sinking stock market — that puts Democrats in an increasingly perilous political position.

In response to August’s disappointing inflation report — which found that food, housing and healthcare costs continue to rise last month — the Federal Reserve announced last week that it would hike interest rates by an additional .75% in an effort to cool off the economy, heightening the possibility of a recession and triggering fears of an economic downturn.

This sent the stock market — which Americans reasonably use to gauge the economy’s health — falling to its lowest point since President Biden took office. The market is now down more than 20% for the year, and more than $9 trillion in wealth from U.S. households has been wiped out.

As a result, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index — which measures how well or poorly Americans rate current economic conditions — just hit one of its lowest points in 30 years. Eight-in-10 Americans rate the economy as “fair” or “poor” and more than twothirds say the economy is getting worse.

Given the palpable strain of rising prices on all Americans and the visible deterioration of the stock market — and with it, the diminishment of Americans’ retirement accounts and savings — it is becoming increasingly likely that voters’ anxieties about the economy will result in a referendum on Democratic leadership in November.

This perfect storm is already producing an uptick in support for Republicans nationally. The GOP now leads Democrats in the generic ballot by 5 points, 51% to 46%, according to a new Abc/washington Post poll.

The economy — and inflation in particular — is still by far the country’s top priority for the upcoming midterm election. In that same vein, a recent New York Times/siena poll found that a plurality (49%) of voters prioritize “economic issues such as jobs, taxes or the cost of living” compared with 31% who saw “societal issues such as abortion, guns or democracy” as more important.

Troublingly for Democrats, a majority (52%) of voters agree with Republicans on the economy, versus 38% who said they agreed with Democrats — a 14-point advantage for the GOP. Republicans also hold a 19-point advantage over Democrats in terms of trust to handle inflation specifically, per the latest ABC News/washington Post poll.

Regardless of how blameworthy we find President Biden and Democrats for this unrelenting inflation — which has been fueled by a combination of the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the multi-trillion-dollar pandemic relief packages passed under the last two administrations — their inability to develop a reassuring message on the economy and rising prices is their most glaring political failure.

Americans’ attitudes toward Democrats’ signature piece of legislation — misnamed the “Inflation Reduction Act” — are evidence of that. Only one in four Americans thought the law would actually live up to its name and reduce inflation, according to Morning Consult polling. Remarkably, a plurality of (one in three) thought it would make inflation worse.

Rising prices are causing financial hardship for the majority of Americans (56%), per a recent Gallup survey. Yet, after last month’s disappointing CPI report was made public — which caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall more than 1,200 points — President Biden chose to tout Democrats’ recent spending bill, which reinforced to struggling American families how out of touch the party is on this issue.

Another ominous development for Democrats is the recent uptick in gasoline prices, as the party’s summer polling gains were directly correlated with the fall in gas prices from record highs.

Over the summer, Democrats enjoyed a brief period where the national issues agenda was favorable to their party — gas prices were on the decline, there was cautious optimism that inflation had peaked, abortion rights were at the core of the political conversation and the national media was focused on the investigations into Donald Trump.

However, the political winds are no longer blowing in their favor, and the country’s metastasizing economic woes could very-well produce an unanticipatedly high number of Republican seat gains in the House and cost Democrats control of the Senate.

DEAN MUSGROVE — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks at a news conference Aug. 25. The Speaker and her Democratic colleagues could be in trouble in November elections, mainly due to the current economy.