Tisha Blackwell, 24, voted for Joe Biden in 2020, but now says she’ll vote for Republican former President Donald Trump, and a key reason for the change is high food and housing prices.
Blackwell, who lives in Detroit in the contested state of Michigan, explained that she now has a better job, but her rent has doubled since she was forced to move and her food and utility bills have skyrocketed.
“I’m in worse shape than I was four years ago,” she said on the sidelines of a campaign rally for Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, in Detroit earlier this month.
“Compared to then, things are a whole lot more expensive here. I was paying $575 rent and now $1,100 (…) everything is more expensive,” he added.
The US recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic is unprecedented in the developed world, with high consumption and investment by businesses and the federal government to avoid a recession. Stock market indices are at record levels, jobs and wages are rising, unemployment is low, and inflation is now below January 2020 levels after peaking in 2022.
But prices of food, rent, utilities and for small luxuries like a meal at a restaurant are considerably much higher than in 2019 due to several factors such as labor costs, lack of competitiveness and supply chain problems.
Many Americans live in a permanent state of price shock. That may explain why voters in the seven contested states that will decide the winner of the presidential election have a negative view of the economy, with 61% saying it is on the wrong track, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published in October.
In addition, 68 percent of respondents said the cost of living is on the wrong track.
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Trump have proposed different solutions to the problem. Harris has promised tax cuts for every new birth, favorable loans for homeownership and financial support for starting a business.
The Republican billionaire has pledged to impose tariffs of “more than 10 percent” on all imported goods, which would allow him to fund a large tax cut.
Voters prefer Trump’s approach on the economy (46%) to Harris’ (38%), a Reuters poll showed.
Blackwell noted that she understands Trump’s argument that tariffs are needed to limit imports and protect American jobs.
“Yes, it may raise prices for consumers, but in the long run something has to be done,” she added.
Disappointed voters
Amicia Cross, a Democratic strategy consultant, estimated that Joe Biden’s administration should take credit for creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in Michigan and across the country, but added that the high cost of living still greatly affects voters.
“People have different feelings about their economic situation, which is not reflected in the job numbers,” Cross noted.
Americans “don’t look at the Dow Jones index. People look at whether they have money to do the things they could do a few years ago, and most people will tell you they don’t,” she assessed.
“Politics is personal. The prism (of voters) is determined by what they live on a day-to-day basis,” she concluded.
David Jones, a 20-year-old student living in Flint, said his parents – both Army veterans – were forced to move and buy a less expensive home in Goshen, Indiana, after inflation rose. They also postponed a trip to Germany, where Jones was born, which they had planned for his 18th birthday.
Not all voters are disappointed, however.
Stu Bealey, a 43-year-old auto industry worker a member of the United Auto Workers union who also lives in Flint, said he now earns $40 an hour thanks to the union. That’s a big increase over the $16 an hour his hourly wage was a few years ago.
Bealey said he voted for Biden in 2020 and will vote for Harris in this year’s election, but commented that there is much less enthusiasm for the current Democratic candidate than there was for Biden or Barack Obama.
