Category: Affordability crisis
Republicans are letting Democrats lie about affordability
Midterm elections go one of two ways. They are either a validation of the sitting president or a repudiation. Historically, they have almost always been a repudiation.
The 2026 midterms are shaping up to be no different — a firm rebuke to Donald Trump. That’s obviously bad for him. Congress will spend two straight years investigating and likely impeaching him.
If President Trump’s supporters don’t show up, Republican defeat is guaranteed.
But the bigger danger is to America. Democrat control of Congress will jeopardize Republicans’ efforts to restore an economy of opportunity for all. Worse, Democrats will lay the groundwork for recapturing the White House in 2028, at which point they will implement the most anti-opportunity agenda in American history. We’re talking welfare for all, funded by crippling tax hikes and a federal takeover of a once-free economy.
Can Donald Trump turn the midterms around? Only if he, his fellow Republicans, and their allies on the right make immediate changes. If they do, they could stem the losses in November — and maybe even defy the odds to expand their majorities in the House and Senate.
First and foremost: They need to realize that midterms hinge on turnout.
The reason midterms are usually a presidential repudiation is that voters from the other party are more motivated. They feel greater anger and intensity, and they show up. The president’s supporters, meanwhile, usually think they did their job when they elected their man. Why bother showing up again?
If President Trump’s supporters don’t show up, Republican defeat is guaranteed. The most urgent need, therefore, is to invest in a massive get-out-the-vote operation. The GOP needs one the likes of which it has never seen.
But such an effort also needs a message — something that resonates with voters and spurs them to action. That’s the second area where change is required. Because right now, Republicans don’t have any meaningful message at all.
The left certainly does. Democrat politicians, their allies in the media, and their associated army of activists and nonprofits have rallied around a single word: affordability. They’re tricking voters into thinking that all the inflation and financial pain that Joe Biden caused is really the fault of Donald Trump. The call to action writes itself: If voters want to make ends meet, their only hope is to vote the GOP out.
This message works, but only because Republicans are letting it work. They are largely silent in the face of Democrat attacks. Worse, in the president’s case, he is calling affordability a “hoax.” For voters who supported him because of Joe Biden’s inflation, nothing could be worse. It’s tantamount to saying their problems don’t matter.
Republicans must reclaim the economic high ground. They need to relentlessly hammer the point that Joe Biden’s enormous failures will take time to fix. They need to point to the relief they’ve given, especially the tax cuts the president signed in July. Most importantly, they need to lay out a unified agenda that speaks to Americans’ deep concerns, convincing voters that the GOP will, in fact, make life more affordable.
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Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Crafting that agenda is as much the work of policy wonks as it is public relations. Republicans and their allies should be relentlessly message-testing and focus-grouping to discover not only what policies Americans want, but how to sell the policies that Americans need — in health care, housing, and beyond. This can be done without compromising conservative principles. In fact, it is essential if those principles are to have a path to becoming policies.
There’s one more message the GOP needs. It’s not enough to make a positive case for Republicans’ own priorities. They need to remind Americans of the danger posed by Democrats relentlessly.
This isn’t hard. The return of crippling inflation. The collapse of our borders once again. Higher taxes on the middle class. Republicans have a simple case to make: If voters want all of America to look more like crime-ridden, welfare-defrauding, utterly unaffordable big blue cities, they should vote for Democrats.
Republicans needed these messages yesterday. They needed a turnout operation that was already delivering these messages to the base and undecided voters alike. If they and their allies don’t get their act together before the start of the year, the midterm elections will indeed be a repudiation of Donald Trump. Worse, they’ll put America’s future at risk. The clock is ticking.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
The party that made life more expensive wants credit for noticing
Having identified a problem they created, Democrats are now blaming “affordability” on Republicans. It is a striking display of audacity — the very definition of chutzpah.
For more than a year, Democrats have struggled to find a message that resonates because they keep recycling losing ones. They have lashed out at immigration enforcement —storming ICE facilities, attacking ICE officers, and defending violent illegal aliens.
Democrats are now left with a single strategy: campaigning on the consequences of their own incompetence and hoping voters forget who caused them.
They voted for the largest tax increase in U.S. history by opposing the extension of the 2017 tax rates under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
They continue to cling to climate alarmism even as the rest of the world moves on.
They remain soft on crime, opposing President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in cities where criminals run rampant and law-abiding citizens live in fear.
And in a final act of desperation, they triggered the longest federal government shutdown in history — before caving and achieving nothing.
Same issues. Same failure to connect.
The results speak for themselves. Democrats’ favorability sits at an abysmal 32.5%, well below Republicans’ 38.2% and far below President Trump’s 43.8%.
Then came Zohran Mamdani, the neophyte New York Democratic Socialist who toppled Democrats’ old guard in consecutive elections — first Mayor Eric Adams, then former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani did what Democrats have always done: promise voters lots of free stuff. Only he did it on a far grander scale — buses, housing, child care, grocery stores.
Faced with his success, Democrats opted for the familiar response: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. They sanitized Mamdani’s socialism, rebranded it as “affordability,” and declared it their new cause.
That affordability is now Democrats’ issue should surprise no one. After all, they caused the crisis they now loudly lament.
Start with New York City, where affordability has collapsed most dramatically. According to Visual Capitalist’s ranking of America’s least affordable cities, Manhattan is No. 1, Brooklyn ranks sixth, and Queens seventh. In fact, the top 10 least affordable cities are overwhelmingly governed by Democrats and located in Democrat-dominated states: New York, Hawaii, California, and Massachusetts. By contrast, nine of the 10 most affordable cities are in Republican-dominated states.
The reasons are no mystery. They are the left’s preferred policies: high taxes that drive up the cost of living and chase out taxpayers; rent control that discourages new construction and fuels homelessness; and excessive regulation and litigation that inflate the cost of everything they touch.
The same pattern holds at the state level. U.S. News and World Report lists the 10 least affordable states, and the top six are California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Washington, and New York. Nine of the 10 are blue states. Florida — the lone red-state exception — also boasts the No. 1 economy, ranks second in education, levies no state income tax, and continues to attract new residents in large numbers. Meanwhile, all 10 of the most affordable states are Republican-led.
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Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
What about inflation? Isn’t that a national problem?
Yes, but inflation didn’t materialize out of thin air. It began under the Biden administration, reaching a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022. CPI-U inflation was just 1.4% when Biden took office in January 2021. By March, it had nearly doubled. By June, it had surged to 5.4%. By December, it hit 7%. A year later, it still stood at 6.5%. Inflation did not fall below 3% until July 2024 — the 43rd month of Biden’s presidency.
Excessive Democrat spending fueled this surge. From fiscal years 2021 through 2024, the Congressional Budget Office shows cumulative deficits of $8.9 trillion, driven by roughly $8 trillion in spending above the pre-pandemic baseline. The only reason Democrats didn’t spend more is that members of their own party balked.
Inflation works like weight gain: it comes on fast and comes off slowly. Even when the rate of inflation declines, prices remain higher. There is no economic Ozempic. Americans are still paying the price for four years of Democratic fiscal gluttony.
None of this has stopped Democrats from claiming “affordability” as their issue — or from demanding more of the same policies that caused the crisis in the first place: higher spending, higher taxes, and more regulation.
Stripped of winning ideas, Democrats are now left with a single strategy: campaigning on the consequences of their own incompetence and hoping voters forget who caused them.
