Midterm voters unlikley to shift focus from economy
By Ronald Brownstein / Bloomberg Opinion
The war with Iran is burning the clock on President Donald Trump’s chances for a reset with voters on the economy. And that increases the odds that his 2026 messaging will focus on disqualifying Democrats with polarizing wedge issues; a strategy that has mostly, though not entirely, failed for other presidents.
As the midterm primaries get underway, the biggest problem for Republicans is that most voters don’t believe Trump has made much progress, or even sufficiently focused, on the problem they elected him to solve: high prices. In national polls, Trump’s approval rating on the economy usually runs around 40 percent or below. That’s a stark contrast from his first term, when it rarely fell below 50 percent after his first few months.
Indeed, during his first term, Trump’s approval rating on the economy almost always exceeded his overall job rating; it was a floor lifting him, no matter what other controversies engulfed him. Now attitudes about his economic performance almost always lag his overall rating, meaning it is an undertow pulling him down.
Trump’s advisers recognize this vulnerability and have put him in settings to allay voters’ economic anxieties. But Trump’s heart doesn’t seem to be in it. The most prominent example was last month’s State of the Union. Rather than acknowledging Americans’ concerns about affordability, he took a victory lap, insisting that inflation was “plummeting” and the nation had entered a “golden age.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/2026/03/16/comment-midterm-voters-unlikley-to-shift-focus-from-economy/
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