Trump Says Midterm Elections Will Hinge On ‘Pricing,’ Lays Out Strategy
President Donald J. Trump is signaling that the 2026 midterm elections will hinge squarely on the issue that matters most to American households: prices at the checkout counter.
In a Friday interview with Politico, the president said voters deciding control of Congress next year will judge the administration based on economic performance and falling consumer costs — an issue Democrats once dismissed until it became politically unavoidable.
“I think it’s going to be about the success of our country. It’ll be about pricing,” Trump told the outlet. “Because, you know, they gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down. Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.”
The remarks come after the United States endured some of the worst inflation in modern history during former President Joe Biden’s tenure. While the inflation rate eased by the end of Biden’s term, everyday Americans continue to feel the sting of persistently high prices for food, housing, and household necessities.
Trump’s renewed emphasis on cost-of-living concerns follows a string of recent Democratic election wins where economic anxiety featured prominently — though those victories were largely confined to deep-blue cities and states. Even so, the president has acknowledged the political weight of affordability and has intensified his public messaging on the economy.
Earlier this month, Trump traveled to Pennsylvania to promote his administration’s economic agenda, addressing voter concerns over wages, prices, and household budgets.
“They have a new word. You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is ‘affordability,’” Trump said during a December 9 speech in Mount Pocono.
Democrats, he added, have complained that “prices are too high.”
“Yeah, they’re too high because they caused them to be too high. But now they’re coming down,” Trump said.
The president has also leaned into a message of fiscal discipline, suggesting that American children do not need excess consumer goods to thrive, remarking that “one or two” pencils and “two or three” dolls should suffice.
Just one day before his latest comments, Trump expressed full confidence in the nation’s economic trajectory, calling the U.S. economy “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” in a separate Politico interview.
That optimism is increasingly supported by recent economic data. According to the latest Consumer Price Index from the U.S. Department of Labor, inflation dropped to 2.7 percent year over year in November — the lowest annual increase since July. Additional government figures released this week showed the economy growing at an annualized rate of 4.3 percent, the fastest pace in two years.
“You saw the 4.3 percent?” Trump told Politico on Friday. “The Democrats were exploding. Their heads were exploding.”
The president credited falling energy costs for broader price relief.
“Electricity is down. It’s way down,” Trump said. “You know, when the gasoline goes down and when the oil and gas go down, the electricity comes down naturally. But it’s all coming down. It’s all coming down. It’s coming beautifully.”
Housing affordability remains one of the most pressing challenges for American families, but Trump is reportedly preparing a major policy push aimed at dramatically increasing supply. According to a senior adviser familiar with the initiative, the plan could encourage the construction of up to 12 million new homes.
“The President has the opportunity in front of him to create possibly the largest housing boom in US history. And I think he has the tools and the personality to accomplish [and] the plans to accomplish it,” Morris Davis, the recently departed Chief Housing Economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told Just the News.
“We think that the President has the capacity with the right plan to create 12 million new houses over the next 10 years. What that will do is make housing attainable for young families,” Davis added.
As economic indicators improve, Trump’s political standing appears to be recovering as well. After dipping last month, his approval rating is now climbing again, according to pollster Nate Silver and other recent surveys.