It is autumnally cool but sunny this morning. Joe Losier goes door to door and knocks. If he's lucky, someone will open it. Losier, a strong man in his fifties, works in a car factory. He is with the United Auto Workers union, or UAW for short. He and three colleagues are traveling in a suburb of Detroit.
Small but well-maintained single-family homes - classic middle class. At the door, Losier and his colleagues are campaigning for the candidates who will support their union in the November elections. Most of them are Democrats.
The unionists only knock on UAW members' doors. In Michigan, every election is close, so every vote counts. Now it's time to mobilize. Losier hears again and again what concerns voters: costs and affordability - that's what people care about most. "Some are also worried about health care. Or about their pension. Or they are afraid about their jobs." That depends on the population group.
Losier: Many blame Trump
Working hard, starting a family, buying a house and then living comfortably - this is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. Trump's tariffs have caused costs to spiral, as did the war against Iran. This is another reason why the midterm elections are likely to be a judgment on the president, says Losier, even more so than is usual in midterm elections anyway.
When he asked who was to blame for the situation, most people answered: "It's Trump! He is responsible for the unjustified wars, the price of gasoline, inflation and the high national debt."
Trump shifts responsibility to others
But Trump and other members of his administration are not known for taking responsibility when things don't go well. Even though it's been almost two years since his election victory, Trump is still trying to blame everything on his predecessor Joe Biden. Even Barack Obama, who has been out of office for almost ten years, is regularly used as a scapegoat.
Biden and Obama have led the country into such a catastrophic situation that it is hardly possible to get everything back on track in just two years, says Trump. At campaign events, he stated that the inflation rate under Biden was higher than ever before in the country's history. However, it is currently only 1.7 or 1.8 percent.
Both are false, and the facts do not flatter Trump: on the last day of Biden's term, the inflation rate was 3.0 percent, now it is 3.7 percent.
Stable economic situation before taking office
All opinion polls currently show that approval of President Trump and his administration is at a historically low level. The US economy was in good condition when Trump took office. It emerged from the COVID period stronger than any other Western economy.
A few days before the 2024 presidential election, Greg Ip, chief economic commentator at the conservative Wall Street Journal, wrote: "The next president will inherit a remarkable economic situation." The "high quality" of recent economic growth will provide a "tailwind" for the next occupant of the White House. Trump could have simply let things continue as they were, only to cheekily claim after six months that his policies had borne great fruit. Hardly anyone would have objected to that.
Instead, Trump took two steps that worsened conditions for the US economy and triggered a price surge for consumers: In April 2025, he imposed tariffs on virtually the entire rest of the world. And in February of this year, together with Israel, he launched a war of aggression against Iran. This led, among other things, to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a global energy crisis.
AI development boosts the economy
Nevertheless, the US economy continues to perform quite bravely. Adjusted for inflation and extrapolated to one year, growth in the second quarter was 2.2 percent. However, economists speak of a "k-shaped economy", an economic development that resembles the letter K: one arrow points up, the other down.
Anything that even remotely has to do with the expansion of artificial intelligence and the construction of data centers provides a powerful boost to growth. Just like the fact that high earners - the beneficiaries of the tax cuts that Trump continued - continue to consume with enthusiasm. But other parts of the economy are weakening.
Prices when refueling as markers
At the pumps, a gallon of regular gasoline currently costs around $4.30 on average in the country, the equivalent of 1.01 euros per liter. The day before the Iran War began, it was $2.98 per gallon. And diesel fuel is even more expensive: a year ago the price per gallon was around $3.63, now it is around $6.32.
Not only does a high fuel price always lead to further price increases, for example for food. For Americans, the price of gasoline also has great symbolic power. Like no other marker, they use it to determine how well or badly they are doing personally. That is why Trump has also lost the trust of the majority of citizens when it comes to economic policy.
A problem for the Republicans
Trump had promised consumers falling prices - instead he triggered new price increases. And this came at a time when Americans had just emerged from the high inflation rates of the COVID era.
So in the midterm elections, Trump and his Republicans are faced with a dilemma: All in all, the economy is not doing badly. But for many people, it just doesn't feel that way. And that could be decisive for the election.
