With Election Day a little less than two weeks away, Spectrum News takes a look at three of the key issues or factors shaping this political season: abortion, Donald Trump, and a changing electorate demographic.
But after traveling to three battleground states and speaking to countless voters, the most frequently cited concern of this midterm election is not just an American problem, but a global one: inflation.
what you need to know
- With historically high inflation plaguing both the United States and the rest of the world, many US voters say the issue is of paramount importance ahead of the midterm elections
- Americans remain divided over whether the problem was caused by President Joe Biden or by factors beyond his control that Republicans are exploiting to their advantage
- Biden recently touted his administration’s progress in reducing the federal deficit, a message he attributed to his own policies ahead of the midterm elections
While the once-skyrocketing prices of housewares and gasoline have stabilized somewhat in recent months, inflation is far higher than it has been in decades. Democrats are now forced to play defense.
The US isn’t the only one seeing historically high inflation. According to the International Monetary Fund, average consumer prices in the UK and Germany have risen more sharply than in America, at 9.1% and 8.5% year-on-year, compared to 8.1% year-on-year.
The reasons for the global economic downturn are complex and include the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains, the shift in consumer demand and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which disrupted global food and energy supplies.
Still, polls show that Americans remain divided over whether the problem was caused by President Joe Biden or by factors beyond his control that Republicans are exploiting to their advantage.
“In the US, I think it’s a more complicated picture because Americans tend to blame the government in power for any kind of negative economic news,” Yoshiko Herrera, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, told Spectrum News . “But on the other hand, there are certain things in the US that are not bad. And for example, the unemployment rate is still very low. Economic growth is slower, but not as bad as it could be. So there are different ways that people can understand it.”
Biden recently touted his administration’s progress in reducing the federal deficit, a message he attributed to his own policies ahead of the midterm elections, though Republicans point to the same provisions as triggers of high inflation.
“Today we have further proof that we are rebuilding the economy in a responsible way. Today my administration announced that the deficit fell by $1.4 trillion this year, the largest one-year decline in American history,” the president said at the White House last week. “This record deficit reduction includes the cost of my student loan plan and everything else we paid for.”
But it’s not entirely true that Biden is as much responsible for the economic recovery as he professes.
Fiscal numbers released by the Treasury Department last Friday revealed ambiguous visions of what it means to be financially responsible: Biden can rightly claim that the fiscal 2022 budget deficit is down $1.4 trillion from a year earlier; Critics can use the same report to say that student loan forgiveness has added about $400 billion to the national debt as the government booked all spending.
Regardless, the economy, jobs and inflation are consistently polled as the top issues voters will be keeping an eye on as they head into the midterms, although Republicans tend to rank them higher than Democrats.
The issue played out in Pennsylvania’s first and only Senate debate Tuesday, where Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz competed against current Lieutenant General John Fetterman, who used a closed-captioned device to help him process the words he heard while recovering from a stroke.
The stakes for the race to resign GOP Sen. Pat Toomey are huge: It represents Democrats’ best chance of flipping a Senate seat this year — and could determine party control of the chamber and the future of Biden’s agenda.
While he was largely supportive of Biden throughout the debate, Fetterman said in part, “He needs to do more to support and fight inflation.”
Fetterman also criticized Oz’s opposition to setting a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour, which the former called a “disgrace”.
“That’s the most American bargain that if you work full-time, you can live with dignity,” Fetterman said. Oz, in turn, emphasized his belief in the free market, saying that pumping natural gas in the state could help raise wages naturally.
“I think if we could unleash the energy beneath our feet here in Pennsylvania, there would be a lot of money for the round,” Oz said.
Pennsylvania voters speaking to Spectrum News largely agreed that the economy and the cost of living are among the top issues they will consider when voting in November.
“I was just looking at my 401K. I want to retire one day, so now I’m crying,” Terri Lynn, a voter from Pennsylvania, told Spectrum News.
“I have a problem with gas prices and how I think we’re limiting our energy sources,” Craig Laubach of Pennsylvania told Spectrum News.
Republicans in other states are following the same thread as Oz, not focusing on the abortion hot topic — as Democrats might have hoped — but instead targeting Biden’s economic and border policies.
On Sunday, economics took center stage in the Washington debate between Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Republican challenger Tiffany Smiley as they squabbled over abortion, crime and inflation, with Murray sharing both her and Biden’s notes on the subject defended.
Murray said she is focused on bringing down costs for families and supports President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
‘Sounds like an answer from Washington, DC to me,’ said Smiley. She said the Biden administration is also aiming to hire 87,000 employees for the Internal Revenue Service who “will come after our deals.”
“I’m going to make sure 87,000 IRS agents aren’t after you,” Smiley said.
Overall, this mid-season has turned into a careful balancing act for Democrats, whose priorities include protecting access to abortion; dealing with voting rights; promoting the construction of domestic factories; combating climate change; Student debt forgiveness and more.
As it looks increasingly likely that Republicans will retake the House after the Nov. 8 election, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has already signaled he will push for spending cuts.
“You can’t just keep spending and adding to the debt,” McCarthy said in an interview with Punchbowl News last week. “There comes a point where we give you more money, but you have to change your current behavior. We’re not just going to keep increasing your credit card limit, are we?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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