Voters who once trusted President Donald Trump to fix the economy say he left them worse off, and on Tuesday many of them made him pay for it.
Darin Gadd, a 59-year-old military retiree from Columbus, Ohio, voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024, and he told the Wall Street Journal he’s fed up with the 80-year-old president over high prices and the war in Iran, which has pushed the cost of filling up his pickup to $130.
“Two years and he hasn’t done anything except for bad things,” Gadd said.
Gadd, who works part time for his brother’s construction company, blamed Trump’s tariffs for driving up the cost of building materials.
“A sheet of plywood used to be $4.50, now it’s $30-something,” he said. “You can’t build a house on that anymore.”
Gadd still voted Republican on Tuesday. Plenty of others didn’t.
Ron Berube, a 64-year-old from Lewiston, Maine, voted for Republican Sen. Susan Collins in 2020. This year, he backed her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, who won.
“We’re just fed up,” Berube said. “A lot of people are sick of Donald Trump. They can’t afford it. They can’t afford anything.”
In Metairie, a New Orleans suburb, 54-year-old plastics-plant worker James Lacoume voted for Trump in 2016. On Tuesday, he cast his Senate ballot for Democrat Jamie Davis, who lost to Republican Julia Letlow by a narrower margin than expected.
“Even though I did not vote for Trump, I was expecting more given his talking points, and instead we just went further and further down,” Lacoume said, referring to his third-party votes in 2020 and 2024.
Their frustration showed up across the country. Roughly 39 percent of voters named the economy as the most important issue, and nearly 90 percent said the cost of living was a crucial or major factor in their vote, according to AP polling. Nearly two-thirds said Trump has made economic conditions worse, and nearly 80 percent said inflation had caused their family hardship over the past year.
The numbers back them up. Inflation hit 3.7 percent in September, well above the 2.9 percent rate at the end of Joe Biden’s term. Real wages have fallen for six straight months, gas prices are up nearly 50 percent since the Iran War began in February, and diesel hit a record high in September.
Even one of Trump’s own former economic advisers says the president fell short.
“The president was there to fix it and he didn’t,” said Joseph Lavorgna, who served on Trump’s first-term National Economic Council and as a counselor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during this term.
The shift has wiped out Republicans’ long-held advantage on pocketbook issues. Voters now trust Democrats over Republicans on the economy by 3 points, after the GOP held a 12-point edge. On inflation, a 10-point Republican lead has flipped to a 5-point Democratic advantage.
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