Inflation Remains Top Issue For Voters In Polls As Trump, Republicans In Race Against Time https://dailytorch.com/2025/03/inflation-remains-top-issue-for-voters-in-polls-as-trump-republicans-in-race-against-time/
Inflation remains the top issue for voters as President Donald Trump enters his third month in office, according to the latest data in a Fox News poll showing 27 percent saying inflation and prices are definitely still the top issue, a consistent result that was also seen in the 2024 election. That cuts across party lines, with 32 percent of Republicans, 27 percent of independents and 21 percent of Democrats saying inflation was the top issue. And across almost every single ethnic and age demographic with few exceptions, inflation remains the top issue. After inflation, it’s the economy and jobs, at 16 percent. The result comes as President Trump, although having his highest overall approval rating ever in a Fox poll at 49 percent, on inflation, 56 percent disapprove of Trump, by far his — and America’s — weakest issue, even as he inherited the mess from former President Joe Biden. That includes 20 percent disapproval among Republicans and 69 percent disapproval from independents. But Biden had problems when he was entering office, too, as the economy had just come out of the 2020 Covid economic lockdowns recession. He started positive, too, but was underwater in approval ratings by August 2021 prior to the botched military withdrawal from Afghanistan, thanks in large part to consumer inflation, which by that time had already reached an annual rate of 5.3 percent. Consumer inflation reached 7.5 percent by Jan. 2022 before Russia invaded Ukraine, and peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022. By then Biden’s average disapproval rating was over 56 percent. Biden never recovered. The lesson is every election is always a referendum of the incumbents. The good news for Trump and Republicans is that while during Biden’s term inflation was already outpacing average weekly earnings by April 2021, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, a condition that persisted all the way until June 2023 — two years is an eternity in politics, and by then, Biden’s fate as a one-term president had already likely been sealed — so far during the first two months of Trump’s second term, earnings are still outpacing inflation, with consumer prices appearing to continue cooling.
