The boisterous optimism that permeates the Democratic Victory Campaign Center in northern Manhattan, one of the many party venues spread across the country with that name, disappears when the word inflation is uttered. Most Americans feel that their economy is worse than it was four years ago, and the latest economic confidence index established monthly by Gallup places it 26 points below zero. The indicator summarizes both the current situation, compared to the 2020 elections, and the future prospects, and 52% of those surveyed say they are very or quite pessimistic in this regard. Their discomfort, and theoretical flow of votes for Donald Trump, has a name: inflation. The rise in prices that followed the pandemic until the CPI reached 9.1% in June 2022 – today it is close to the Federal Reserve’s 2% objective – has left supermarket shelves and tenants a stubborn footprint.
“The neighbors who come are not worried about the big debates, the risks to democracy or polarization, not even the ban on abortion, what worries them is the price of the shopping basket, rents, health coverage and the cost of medications,” explains Steve Max, coordinator of the campaign center. “Very few know about the Inflation Reduction Act, one of the main achievements of Joe Biden’s presidency, and the few who have heard of it believe that it refers only to infrastructure and green energy, without knowing that it has served also to put a cap on the prices of many medications… In this neighborhood the majority are baby boomerswith its ailments and chronic illnesses. But the majority does not know any of this or, what is worse, believes that Trump and Biden are the same, especially the younger ones, who are very poorly informed. That’s why we are here, to do pedagogy,” he adds.
The American who votes with his pocketbook can reason his choice in one of two ways. That inflation was caused by the perfect storm of unbridled consumption after the pandemic thanks to Government stimuli, with supply strained by demand, disrupted by the blockage of the supply chain and aggravated by the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the raw materials and energy market. Or you can believe a more immediate explanation: that Biden is to blame for inflation, as Trump hammers at his rallies.
Because, “although Kamala Harris explains well what has been achieved in the last four years, I fear that her arguments do not have the reach of Trump’s lies,” Max assumes with a discouraged expression. Especially for broad layers of the electorate, such as African Americans and Latinos, Democratic voters in previous elections, who now give credence to Trump’s simplistic message. Brenda, a 64-year-old African-American clinic assistant from Harlem, voted “enthusiastically” for Barack Obama in 2009, “and a little less enthusiastically in 2012,” but this year she is going to opt for Trump. “Inflation has eaten up the few savings I had for retirement, now I will have to wait until I am 70 or older. My landlord raised my rent by $400 all at once, I have cut my health plan coverage and I have had to modify my diet due to prices: there are foods that I no longer eat. Prices went up and up and up, and they have stayed up there, without going down. At least with Trump there was no inflation,” says Brenda, repeating one of the Republican’s favorite arguments.
Nearly three in four African Americans rate the state of the economy as fair or poor, according to a recent Siena College survey for the Journal The New York Times among potential black voters, a group that tends to prioritize economic issues when considering whether and who to vote. His support for Democrats has fallen from 90% in 2020, when they helped Biden win the White House, to 78%. On the contrary, support for Republicans has gone from 7% eight years ago to 15% today, according to the survey.
Christopher Towler, a professor at California State University, Sacramento and director of the Black Voter Project, confirms the slight shift toward Trump. “Yes, we have seen economic hardship cited as a reason why black voters decide to support Trump. However, our research suggests that this is only a small percentage of the black community (approximately 11%-13%), and the majority of those swayed by that argument tend to be less politically savvy and less likely to vote in general.”
But the replacement of Biden by Harris, he emphasizes, has reengaged many who showed symptoms of detachment towards the current president, according to a representative investigation of the 50 States, including the seven pivotal ones, of which the first two waves have been carried out, of a total of four, always with the same sample. “Overall, the percentage of black Americans who rated Democrats as a favorable option has increased by 19%, up from 43% in the first wave [marzo] to 62% in the second [primera quincena de agosto]” explains Towler. Exactly, the period from Biden’s candidacy to Harris’s. Another recent poll of African Americans by NORC for the Associated Press shows a tie between the candidates. For the Hispanic community, according to the Voto Latino 2024 survey published on Monday, inflation and the cost of living are the biggest concern (54% of responses).
Comparing the economic performance of the Trump and Biden mandates is risky, as well as imprecise, due to the great disruption of the pandemic in 2020 and the subsequent convulsive recovery, in the wake of marked inflation. The Trump Administration benefited from a timely boost, that of the healthy labor market left by the Obama administration. Unemployment skyrocketed in 2020, Trump’s last year in the White House, due to the coronavirus, but four years later it has not only recovered, but the market is showing signs of good health, with an unemployment rate close to full employment . “Unemployment is not among the concerns of those who come to ask us about the program [electoral]not at all,” confirms Max in the Democratic local.
Hunger queues and soup kitchens
The hunger lines of the pandemic have returned to some neighborhoods of the city, one of the most expensive in the United States, and they have done so in recent months due to the cumulative effect of the rise in food prices and incomes. There has also been an increase in the number of supermarkets that accept EBT cards, or food stamps, which allow nearly two million beneficiaries of this federal program to buy food in a city of eight million. Food banks that after confinement only distributed food have recently set up soup kitchens for residents over 60 years of age. “When you’re food insecure, the last thing you think about is voting, much less who to vote for,” summarizes Sultana Ocasio, director of the Harlem branch of the Food Bank for the City of New York, whose fleet of 30 trucks travels the streets daily. five counties to supply nearly 800 NGO locations and partners.
“Here we obviously don’t talk about politics, nor do we ask beneficiaries what they think of the candidates, but we do encourage them to register to vote, something that for many is completely secondary. We are talking about people theoretically integrated into society, with work, who nevertheless do not have enough to eat. Because first they pay the rent, then the phone [en el que reciben los cupones de ayuda]the light and lastly, the food. Let’s say that food is the fourth priority for tens of thousands of New Yorkers, something they solve day by day, without perspective,” adds Ocasio while supervising the movement of volunteers with wheelbarrows full of bags of potatoes and onions.
The hypothetical flow of abstentions includes among its ranks Telma, a Guatemalan who arrived in the United States 45 years ago and claims not to know who to vote for, in case she finally decides to do so. “I haven’t registered to vote, years ago I voted Republican, because I’m a devout Christian and I don’t like abortion, but then I switched to Obama because he seemed capable of changing things. Then I didn’t vote anymore. Now I wouldn’t know who to do it for, because they seem the same to me, they only care about the Stock Market, not about those of us who are standing in line for a plate of food,” adds the woman, a sexagenarian who only aspires to chain contracts in cleaning companies.
That is why the Food Bank emphasizes the need to empower the voter. “Voting is a powerful tool for change, especially for communities facing food insecurity, who are often underrepresented in political decisions that directly affect their ability to access essential resources,” says Leslie Gordon, president of the NGO. “By increasing voter turnout in these communities—through outreach—we can get policymakers to pay attention to the issues that matter most to the people we serve. An informed person is a more likely voter, and the more we vote, the more we help drive policies that enable all New Yorkers to achieve food security forever.”
At the headquarters of Palante (People Against Real Estate Abuse and Exploitation), an NGO also based in Harlem, they confirm the general disinterest of many neighbors. “When you don’t know how you are going to pay the next month’s rent, or you are forced to deprive yourself of food to be able to do so, I assure you that the last thing you think about is voting: furthermore, voting is having confidence in the future and they don’t They expect nothing, because they are not going to do better whoever wins in November,” says Jakob, spokesperson for the NGO, who does not want to give his last name. Telma is one of the beneficiaries of the association’s legal advice, to avoid the eviction of the small old rental apartment in which she has lived for more than 30 years. “We have been avoiding eviction, but it will end up coming,” he laments.
Trump attributes the scourge of inflation to Biden, but his proposals to clean up the economy are nothing other than inflationary: that is the big fine print of his program. Increase in tariffs, mass deportation of immigrant workers, cheap labor; lower taxes: all of this would trigger inflation, as a letter signed by 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists warned in June. Meanwhile, the dollar has strengthened in October due to the prospect – judging by the latest polls – of a possible Trump victory. “Trump’s economic policy favors a strong dollar,” a Wall Street analyst told the portal last week MarketWatch. The idea that Trump, who spent much of his first term complaining that weak foreign currencies undermined U.S. competitiveness, is the strong-dollar candidate is a noteworthy twist.
Last month, the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) predicted that Trump’s policies would cause a sharp rise in the CPI two years into his second term. The analysis concluded that inflation, which would otherwise be 1.9% in 2026, could reach a range of 6% to 9.3% if Republican economic proposals are adopted, including Trump’s attempts to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve. Economists are not very convinced by Harris’s economic agenda either, although they do not consider that his proposals can particularly fuel prices. Deprived of that degree of knowledge that experts treasure, the American middle class, and especially the one most exposed to the ups and downs of the economy, seems to be campaigning for that sale garment whose sleeves are pulled boldly by some and others, giving it their all, to finally leave it where it was. Shaken