U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters next to a DoorDash delivery worker outside the Oval Office at the White House on April 13, 2026, in Washington, DC.
Brendan Smialowski AFP | Getty Images
Over a four-day period earlier this month, President Donald Trump posted on his Truth social account about his proposed construction of the Arc de Triomphe, the ballroom, the Iran war, a UFC fight at the White House, and Bruce Springsteen’s plastic surgery allegations.
President Trump also posted (later deleted) an AI-generated photo of himself as Jesus, right behind a screed aimed at Pope Leo
What has long been absent from the president’s social media presence and from his more general discourse these days is the economy — an issue that Trump brought to the White House in 2016 and 2024.
“President Trump’s original promise to the American people was, “I’m a rough-and-tumble guy and a little embarrassing, but I know how to run an economy,” and they believe that because they remember the good times in 2016,” said Mike Murphy, an anti-Trump former Republican strategist and co-host of the Hacks on Tap podcast with David Axelrod.
Critics and concerned Republicans say President Trump hasn’t made the economy a high enough priority in this year’s election, which is just over six months away, but last week he tried to shift focus back to the cost of living issue.
But even when President Trump mentions the economy, his words often don’t reflect the reality that many Americans feel. He recently said that gas prices (up 27% year-over-year, according to AAA) are “not that high,” and that affordability is a “democratic hoax.”
Tone-deafness led to flagging the vote. In CNBC’s first quarter 2026 National Economic Survey released Thursday, 60% of respondents disapproved of his economic response. The change reminds some political advisers of mistakes made by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election cycle.
Adam Bozzi, a Democratic strategist and former congressional aide, said saying that inflation is “temporary,” as Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in June 2021, is a lot like Trump officials declaring, as they did during the Iran war, that gas prices would fall in “a few more weeks.”
Republicans hope to maintain narrow majorities in both houses of Congress, but some fear they will squander the party’s long-held economic advantage and repeat the mistakes Democrats made a cycle ago.
“He lost the right to the economy, and Democrats realized that was his weakness,” Murphy said.
Democratic Party campaign upends economic scenario
White House press secretary Khush Desai rejected the idea that Trump and the Republican Party are losing ground on the economy.
“President Trump can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said. “Since the launch of Operation Epic Fury, President Trump has signed multiple executive orders on housing affordability, TrumpRx has added a new tranche of discounted medicines, and tens of millions of Americans have received historic tax refund checks thanks to the President’s Working Families Tax Cut.” The Working Families Tax Cuts Act of 2025 is the Republican tax and spending package, better known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
But with election intrigue, personal vendettas and foreign policy distracting President Trump, Democrats are seizing an opportunity to flip the script and use their economic message to their advantage in this year’s election.
Casey Burgat, director of the Legislative Affairs Program at George Washington University’s School of Political Management, said he sees a reversal as Democrats gain control over the economy.
“I think the (Democratic) post-mortem probably told them they were out of touch and couldn’t explain how people felt at their kitchen table,” Burgat said. “But now the tables have turned in that President Trump owns this. And what was once his biggest attack on the (Biden) administration is now his biggest weakness.”
Despite pressure, the Democratic National Committee has not released an official autopsy of the 2024 election, in which Republicans stormed the White House and took control of both houses of Congress. But there is some consensus about what went wrong.
“The bottom line is always 2020, but there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that most voters, especially those who dually dislike both candidates, put the economy and the cost of living first,” said Tre Easton, deputy director of public policy at the centrist Democratic think tank Searchlight Institute and a former aide to Sen. John Fetterman (D).
economy out of focus
To Trump’s critics like Murphy, the president appears unable to maintain focus on the cost of living issue as Americans’ economic worries grow and his approval ratings on the issue hit record lows.
“You have a president who is supposed to be a passionate businessman, and he has other priorities, and that’s definitely going to be an issue for Republicans during the midterm elections,” said Brittany Martinez, executive director of Principles First, an alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference and a former aide to Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
During an impromptu press conference aimed at touting President Trump’s “tipping tax exemption” policy enacted as part of the 2025 tax and spending bill, a DoorDash delivery worker had to be held back from work after Trump strayed into a conversation about transgender men in women’s sports.
Some of these are “own goals,” Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, who fought with President Trump over the tariffs, said in an interview. “Some of the wounds were unnecessary and self-inflicted.”
And Democrats are jumping on board whenever they can, especially since the Iran war sent gas prices skyrocketing.
“Americans cannot afford President Trump’s America,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement. “In contrast, Democrats are focused on cutting costs and curbing corruption, and our candidates are focused on the issues voters care about most.”
Democrats face unique electoral hurdles
President Trump’s lack of focus has given Democrats optimism, but they are not without problems heading into the midterm elections.
Despite President Trump’s low approval ratings, recent polls have found Democrats to be nearly as unpopular as Republicans, and a new CNBC poll released Thursday confirmed that trend.
But Democrats are looking to rebuild a broken brand, and Republicans in Congress are retreating.
Thirty-eight House Republicans have said they will not seek re-election, compared to just 23 Democrats. Bacon said some of the defections may be related to ominous feelings within the ranks. And he worries about the impact of imposing things like voter ID domestically and bullying international allies.
“Some of these bills, like the SAVE Act, have a big impact on their base, but the independent swing voters that we need to support in November aren’t really interested in it,” Bacon said, referring to President Trump’s ongoing voter ID bill. “We’re threatening Canada, we’re threatening Greenland. We’re going after NATO. I think a lot of people who voted for us see that and are not impressed.”
One Republican operative, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said a large part of how voters think about the Republican Party’s handling of the economy depends on whether and when the Iran war ends and gas prices fall. He expressed cautious optimism, saying Republicans are “very conscious” of avoiding the same mistakes Democrats have made in the past.
“Maybe (the economy) is an issue where we’ve backed off a little bit…but the Democrats haven’t gotten past us yet,” the operative said.
“We’re not really hitting the panic button on the campaign side at this point. We’re going to give it some time. There’s going to be hundreds of millions of news stories from now until Election Day, but gas prices won’t be much of a concern anymore until Election Day,” he said.
“Hopefully.”
