President Donald Trump will take his economic message on the road Tuesday to a swing district in eastern Pennsylvania, the first of many planned domestic trips the White House is organizing on an issue it believes will be the key decider in next year’s midterms.
“Affordability” has become a buzzword among leaders in both parties in recent months, with each side trying to win the messaging war and deflect blame over the financial strain felt by millions of Americans.
For Trump, who promised a new age of economic prosperity in his campaign, it’s a test of his ability to deliver, as GOP lawmakers prepare for an uphill battle defending their House and Senate majorities.
“Everybody gets it at the White House,” said one Trump adviser. “We’ve got a lot of work to go, and it’s frustrating for the president, but it’s what we’ve got to deal with.”
Yet more than a year after his victory, polls show that a majority of Americans feel Trump has not yet made good on that promise — and he faces the prospect of an electoral wipeout in next year’s midterms if he fails to quickly regain his footing on the economy. And so far, the president has struggled to stay on message when it comes to the economy and has even dismissed Americans’ economic pain, repeatedly referring to affordability as a “Democratic hoax” in the wake of the party’s electoral successes in off-year elections last month.
A recent Gallup poll found that 40% of Americans rated economic conditions as poor in November, up from 37% in October.
A Fox News national survey from November found 76% of voters view the economy negatively. And perhaps most alarming for Trump and his aides, Republicans have steadily lost their long-held advantage over Democrats on economic issues, with the administration bleeding support from cost-concerned voters on both sides of the aisle.
“Large numbers, overall and among Republicans, say their costs for groceries, utilities, healthcare and housing have gone up this year,” Fox News said of the results.
A key question hanging over Tuesday’s event — and the White House’s economic strategy — is how Trump himself chooses to approach the cost-of-living issue during his speech at the Mount Airy Casino Resort: Will he continue to insist on painting the economy as being stronger than ever thanks to his leadership, or will he concede to his aides’ wishes and acknowledge there is work to be done to help ease Americans’ concerns?
Alarm bells began going off on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue after Democrats walked away with major victories in New Jersey, Virginia and California last month, with high prices and cost-of-living concerns ranking as a top issue for voters, multiple White House and Trump administration officials told CNN.
Since then, Trump has been focused on highlighting his economic policies and has called on members of his party to do the same, though he personally views the issue as a perception problem, the officials said.
“He feels this is a communication issue,” said one administration official. “He wants Republicans to step it up in talking about all the good work being done to improve the economy.”
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, one of a handful of Republicans who’s defending a district Trump lost in 2024, said he agrees with the president that affordability “is the issue.”
“That trumps everything else,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju in a recent interview, adding that he doesn’t think his party has been focusing enough on the topic.
However, Fitzpatrick also said he disagrees with the president’s rhetoric referring to affordability as “a Democratic scam.”
“I don’t believe that to be true at all. And we know it’s real,” he said. “I — believe me — I hear it every day back home. It’s real.”
Trump has bristled at the suggestion there are fundamental flaws in the economy, which he frequently boasts he rescued from Biden-era policies, flashing irritation in particular at Democrats’ efforts to seize on affordability issues as a central element of their midterm strategy.
In public and private, Trump has instead cast blame on former President Joe Biden, arguing he inherited a plagued economy and that it takes time for his own policies to settle in. He’s resisted acknowledging voters’ cost-of-living concerns as legitimate, deriding affordability worries as a “hoax” and “con job” ginned up solely to hurt him politically.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Kush Desai characterized the cost-of-living concerns as “Joe Biden’s inflation and affordability crisis,” arguing that Trump views improving the economy as a top priority.
“Much work remains, but President Trump is highlighting the meaningful progress that his Administration has made and will continue to make,” he said.
But as Trump approaches the one-year mark of his second term, simply blaming Biden has begun to lose its effectiveness with the public. And even as Trump publicly downplays Americans’ financial struggles under his tenure, his top advisers acknowledge the GOP has a problem. CNN previously reported that in recent weeks, White House officials have advised the president not to brush away or outright dismiss that Americans are feeling squeezed by rising prices.
They have pressed the president to express greater sympathy and adopt a message that contrasts his agenda with congressional Democrats’, rather than with an ex-president who has little remaining sway even within his own party.
“Joe Biden is no longer a threat to them because he’s out of office, he’s never going to be in office again,” the Trump adviser said, arguing that the president needs instead to focus on selling his policies and reassuring voters that more help is on the way. “You’ve got to feel their pain. You’ve got to talk about it every day.”
As part of that push, Trump’s advisers have been actively putting “policy time” — as one of the officials characterized it — on the president’s schedule with the goal of accelerating the administration’s efforts to tackle inflation.
Part of the strategy, first reported by CNN, is aimed at having the president travel the country to better communicate his economic platform, such as with his visit to Mount Pocono on Tuesday.
Starting early next year, the White House wants to get into a weekly rhythm of having the president take day trips to cities across the country tied to the issue, a senior White House official told CNN.
Tuesday’s event — in a district Trump carried by nearly 9 points and which GOP Rep. Rob Bresnahan narrowly flipped in 2024 — will put the president’s messaging to the test.
During a Monday roundtable highlighting the administration’s efforts to aid farmers, Trump indicated he was aware of the need to adopt a stronger message on the economy, insisting several times that he was focused on “fixing the problem.”
“It’s a very simple statement: They caused it, we’re fixing it,” Trump said of his rebuttal to Democrats’ affordability arguments. “We inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country, and we’re taking it.”
Inside the White House, officials believe they can still regain ground on the economy, pointing to progress on lowering gas prices and the cost of eggs, as well as tax relief set to take effect next year that they argue will benefit some voters — even if few of them are aware of it.
Several officials also argue that many of the policies enacted thus far — such as energy deregulations and other provisions in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that passed over the summer — need time to work their way to Americans’ pockets. It’s a message they’ve also given to Trump during their meetings on tackling the affordability issue, they said.
Aides are also on the hunt for more ways to demonstrate that they’re focused on cost-of-living issues, from slashing the price of beef to holding out hope that the Federal Reserve will continue cutting interest rates and bring mortgage rates down.
But just as critical as making progress on affordability is ensuring voters feel it, aides and advisers acknowledged. And while Trump has been told he needs to make a more sympathetic case, he’s remained reluctant so far to buy into that approach completely.
“We brought prices way down from what it was,” Trump said Monday, declaring inflation “essentially gone” despite an acceleration in prices in recent months. “We’re going to have the greatest economy in history.”
