By Tim Reid and Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will give the latest in a series of economic speeches in Georgia on Thursday as he seeks to persuade voters he and fellow Republicans have a plan to lower prices ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections.
Trump won re-election in 2024 in large part because of his promise to reduce inflation, but he has been struggling to convince Americans that he is making inroads in bringing down high prices, public opinion polls show.
Voter angst about costs has emerged as a threat to Republicans’ control of Congress ahead of the November elections.
Trump’s speech in Rome, Georgia, will highlight his plans “to make life affordable for working people,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday. Trump is expected to speak at the Coosa Steel Corporation, according to a Republican Party promotional posting online.
Although Trump is not on the ballot in November he has become his party’s chief messenger on the cost of living. But his recent speeches on the economy have been at times meandering, off-message and have rarely acknowledged the strain many Americans say they still feel at the grocery store.
In a Reuters analysis this month of five speeches on the economy that Trump has given since December, he asserted that inflation had been beaten or was way down almost 20 times and said prices were falling almost 30 times, assertions at odds with economic data and voters’ daily experiences.
The overall yearly inflation rate in January was 2.4%, down from 2.7% in December. But food inflation was almost 3% over the past year, meaning Americans are paying more for grocery staples, while housing costs have also risen.
Republican strategists have told Reuters that Trump’s mixed messaging on an issue that is angering voters risks creating a credibility gap for him and the Republican Party ahead of the midterm elections.
Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and are in danger of losing it, while Democrats need a net gain of four seats to retake the Senate, a more challenging task given the number of seats they are defending.
Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the economy was 34% according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week, down from 36% last month. Some 57% of respondents disapprove of his job performance on the economy.
In his Georgia speech, Trump will likely tout his tax cuts that kicked in last month and will produce greater savings for tens of millions of families, as well as the scrapping of taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security payments.
Trump has also been presenting plans to lower mortgage interest rates and housing prices, and deals with health insurance companies to reduce drug prices.
Trump will deliver his speech in a deeply conservative district that was represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Once a fierce Trump loyalist, Greene resigned her congressional seat in January after a bitter split with the president.
A special election to fill Greene’s seat will be held on March 10. Trump has endorsed a local prosecutor in an attempt to clear the field but his backing has not deterred 14 other Republicans from entering the race, turning the contest into an election-year test of Trump’s hold on his Make America Great Again movement.
(Reporting by Tim Reid and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)
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