President Donald Trump is trying to convince voters before the Nov. 3 midterm elections that the U.S. economy is rocketing upward. But voters say inflation remains a challenge because the Iran war has pushed up gasoline prices, grocery bills have remained expensive and high interest rates have made it harder to afford a home or a new car.
The economy is neither as strong as Trump has claimed nor as weak as consumer sentiment surveys suggest. But with its mix of inflation, inequality and stock market gains, the economy is unsatisfying to most of the public, and its performance has not lived up to Trump’s promises.
Voters expected Trump to quash inflation. In his inaugural address last year, the Republican pledged: “I will direct all members of my Cabinet to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices.”
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And at an Oct. 3 campaign appearance in Vandalia, Ohio, he told the crowd: “We have almost no inflation.” But Labor Department reports don’t bear that out.
The consumer price index had been rising at an annual clip of 3% in January 2025, when Trump returned to the White House. Inflation continued to slow until April 2025, when Trump announced a sweeping set of tariffs and prices began to climb again. The inflationary pressures were compounded this year with the start of the Iran war.
Inflation has not returned to peaks seen during President Joe Biden’s term. But the data tells a clear story of inflation on a downward trend that moved jaggedly upward under Trump. The last CPI report before Election Day showed inflation was 3.7% over the past 12 months.
