Exit Poll: Approximately 60 Percent Blame President Trump for High Prices

Exit polls late Tuesday showed a significant percentage of voters blame President Donald Trump for high prices. Approximately 60 percent of those polled amid the crucial midterm election pointed to Trump, the New York Post reported. “The findings, released less than one hour before the first polls closed, showed that three-quarters of voters were ‘angry’ or ‘dissatisfied’ with the direction of the country and that six in ten disapproved of Trump’s performance,” the outlet said, citing the Associated Press. “The Associated Press exit poll found that four in 10 voters said the economy was their top issue while three in 10 cited the fate of democracy as their primary concern,” the article continued. In early October, another poll showed a majority blamed Trump for rising prices and higher costs of living, per Breitbart News: Surveying 2,140 potential voters nationwide between September 24 and 28 with a margin of error of +/-2.9 percentage points, the poll from the Associated Press (AP)-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that just 17 percent of Americans approve of the president’s handling of higher prices while only 26 percent approve of his handling of the economy overall. Roughly 65 percent of those polled blamed high prices on the president’s policies. When broken down along party lines, 67 percent of Republicans said higher prices were the result of factors beyond the president’s control. In 2022, the same poll showed that roughly 87 percent of Democrats said that higher prices were beyond President Joe Biden’s control while 44 percent of the broader public believed higher prices were the result of Biden’s policies. Breitbart News reported Monday that the Republican Party was going into the midterm elections with a “powerful economic case in favor of keeping its majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate,” but noted that for Republican candidates it was “unlikely to move many voters.” The report said the American economy’s growth was “surging” but “Midterm elections, however, are not typically decided on questions of economic growth. While an expanding economy helps an incumbent president or his party in presidential election years, it appears to have little to no direct effect on midterm elections.” In contrast, a recent NBC poll showed the public had more trust in Republicans to handle migration and the economy, according to Breitbart News.