For many US voters, the economy is personal and they blame the Democrats

Detroit: Tiesha Blackwell, 24, voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but says she is casting her ballot for Republican former President Donald Trump this year, and high food and housing prices are a chief reason. Blackwell, who lives southwest of Detroit in the battleground state of Michigan, says she has a better job now, but her rent has since doubled after she was forced to move, and her grocery and utility bills have soared.

"I'm not worse off than I was four years ago," Blackwell said on the sidelines of a rally featuring Trump's running mate J D Vance in Detroit this month.

"But compared to then, things are really, really high out here. I went from paying $575 to now I pay $1,100 just for rent. I remember ground chuck was $2.99 a pound. Now it's $4.99. Everything is higher." The United States' post Covid-19 economic recovery has been the envy of the developed world, with strong consumer spending and business and federal investment helping the economy dodge a predicted recession. Stock markets are at record highs, jobs and wages are growing fast, unemployment is low and inflation is now below January 2020 levels after a spike in 2022.

But prices for food, rent, utilities and treats like dining out are all well above 2019 levels, because of complex factors the US government has limited impact on, like labour costs, lack of competition and supply chain issues.

Many Americans are in a constant state of sticker shock. That may explain why voters in the seven battleground states that will determine the winner of the Nov. 5 election have a negative view of the economy, with 61 per cent saying it is on the wrong track in a Reuters/Ipsos poll this month, and 68 per cent saying the cost of living was on the wrong track.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and Trump have proposed different fixes. Harris has promised to fight price gouging and boost a child tax credit, while Trump has proposed cutting taxes on overtime pay, imposing blanket tariffs on imports that he says will bring manufacturing back to the US and mass deportation of immigrants.

Trump's proposed tariffs and deportation threats will drive up prices for goods and services, many economists say, while Harris' price-gouging ban is untested on a federal level.

Still, when asked which candidate had the better approach on issues, Trump led on the economy - 46 per cent to 38 per cent, this month's Reuters poll showed.

People who study economics say they feel voters' frustration even if they don't think Trump's plan will help.

"I understand inflation better than the average person, and I've worked at the Fed, but I remain surprised at how upset inflation makes me," said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who has been critical of Trump's tariff plans in the past.

"When I walk into a restaurant that I've been going to years and ... instead of 50 bucks, it's 70 bucks, I feel like somebody punched me in the face and stole a $20 bill out of my wallet," said Strain.

Blackwell, the Michigan voter, says she buys Trump's argument that tariffs are needed to keep out imports and protect US jobs. "Yeah, it could increase the price for consumers, but in the long run something has to be done," she said.

Michigan on edge

Harris' visit Monday to Michigan will be her tenth since becoming the party's nominee. The state is still scarred by the loss of over a third of its auto-related jobs since 1990 and backed Trump in 2016, while Biden won by less than three percentage points in 2020.

Harris' campaign has over 375 staff in the state, nearly four times Trump's, yet a FiveThirtyEight compilation of polls shows Harris with less than a 1 percentage point edge over Trump in the state. Last Monday, Harris and Republican former lawmaker Liz Cheney met with suburban voters in Oakland County, outside Detroit. On Saturday, she joined former First Lady Michelle Obama in Kalamazoo. Michigan's unemployment rate has been consistently higher than the overall US numbers for years, but the state hit its highest job level and lowest unemployment in 20 years last year, as federal infrastructure money flowed in.

Ameshia Cross, a Democratic strategist, said the Biden administration deserved credit for creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in Michigan and across the country, but that high living costs were still having a big impact on voters.

"There are a lot of things that people are feeling in terms of their personal economy that are not reflected in the jobs numbers," Cross said, including worries about the impact of electric vehicles on the local auto industry, housing and food costs.

"It's not the Dow Jones Industrial Average. People are looking at whether they have money to do the things they were able to do just a few years ago, and most would tell you they cannot," she said. "All politics is personal. Their prism is determined by what they're going through on a daily basis."

Devin Jones, 20, a college student who lives in Flint, Michigan, said his parents - both Army veterans - were forced to move away and buy a less expensive home in Goshen, Indiana, after inflation soared. They also put off a long-promised 18th birthday trip to Germany, where Jones was born.

The surge in the price of ground beef and eggs was "ridiculous," he said. "Under Trump, under previous administrations, things were alright. Things weren’t too expensive," he said.

Not everyone is disgruntled.

Stu Billey, 43, a United Auto Workers member and ex-Marine who lives in Flint Township, Michigan, said his union job now pays $40 an hour, compared to the $16 hourly wage he earned a few years ago.

"Having a union job has drastically increased my livability. I’m way better off but it had to do with the negotiation of a contract," he said, adding that higher grocery prices hurt less now given his higher wages.

Billey says he voted for Biden in 2020 and will back Harris, but says there's considerably less enthusiasm for her than for other Democrats like Biden or former President Barack Obama.

“Voting and supporting are different things," he said.