In the wake of the GOP’s electoral drubbing this past Tuesday, President Donald Trump had thoughts. After insisting it wasn’t his fault, he offered a prescription: Republicans need to talk more about their economic record.
“These are the things you have to talk about,” he said. “If people don’t talk about them, then you can do not so well in elections.”
Thinking that was the problem is exactly the mistake President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made.
The economy under Biden was the envy of the world—low unemployment, solid growth, and inflation well below that of peer nations. Democrats talked about it endlessly. I talked about it endlessly. But for a second America—crushed by rising costs, stuck in low-wage jobs, and left with little chance of upward mobility—it didn’t feel like prosperity. To them, life was getting harder.
That America looked at its options. Trump said the economy was “a disaster.” He wasn’t right in the macro sense, but for people taking items out of their grocery carts, it sure felt like one. Democrats, meanwhile, kept insisting things weren’t just fine—they were amazing. World-class economy! Record jobs! Historic growth! But no statistic can convince someone living a hard reality that things are okay.
So, in 2024, they rewarded the guy who said the economy was a disaster. Trump won voters making under $50,000 a year, 50% to Harris’ 48%, according to exit polls.
A customer shops at a grocery story in West Virginia.
That flipped back on Tuesday, as lower-income voters snapped hard to the Democrats.
And Trump’s takeaway? That voters just don’t understand how good they have it. On Thursday he even said, “I don’t want to hear about the affordability, because right now we’re much less. If you look at energy, we’re getting close to $2 a gallon gasoline.”
Except we’re not. Gas prices are higher on average now than a year ago, and everyone who counts their dollars at the pump knows it. The same thing happened earlier this fall, when he claimed prices were “WAY DOWN,” and even his biggest fans didn’t buy it.
Trump is trying to spin away people’s real pain. The difference is that Biden could at least point to genuine accomplishments. Trump has none beyond a strong stock market that mainly benefits people making over $100,000 a year—voters who now lean Democratic.
Tuesday’s results suggest that poorer voters know they screwed up by voting Republican in 2024. They didn’t make that mistake in 2025. And unless Trump finds something real to offer them—beyond bigger and bolder lies—they won’t in 2026, either.
You can’t tell people who are struggling to make ends meet that everything’s fine. Trump’s about to learn the same lesson.
