Affordability Politics Are Here to Stay

Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens and gas prices fall, many Americans will still believe that the economy is terrible. Do the Democrats have a solution for this “permacession”?

“I should be securely in the middle class,” Kris Massey, a 57-year-old nurse practitioner who lives near Nashville, told CNN. “I should be fine, and I’m not. I can’t be the only one feeling like this.”

As that CNN article shows, a lot of people in America are struggling to get by right now, thanks in part to a huge spike in prices caused by President Trump’s war against Iran, which retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz. The nationwide average for a gallon of gas is $4.45, per AAA’s tracker. Consumer sentiment just hit an all-time low—worse not only than during the Great Recession the pandemic, and even the oil crises of the 1970s. Since 2021, CNN notes, prices are up more than 25 percent.

The high cost of everything played a pivotal role in the 2024 election, dragging down approval of the Biden-Harris administration and boosting Trump’s campaign, which focused on bringing down prices. Now, looking ahead to the November midterms and the 2028 presidential election, the table has turned: Without really doing much of anything—largely because they hold no power in Washington—the Democratic Party is favored to retake at least one chamber of Congress in the fall and will likely be in a strong position to retake the presidency two years later. Affordability politics has become a pendulum, with consumer sentiment driving electoral shifts: Voters punish incumbent parties for high prices and empower minority parties, and then a few years later they reverse course. That’s good news for the Democrats in the near term—but a warning to them as well.

There is a temptation to view these electoral shifts........

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