Foreign policy rarely decides US midterm elections — voters usually cast their ballots on the economy. This year, according to a Reuters analysis, the two have merged: President Donald Trump's war against Iran and his sweeping tariff campaign have pushed up costs for American households, turning his handling of world affairs into a pocketbook issue just days before the November 3 elections.
The US Capitol, where control of Congress will be decided on November 3. Photo: Noclip, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Voters are drawing the connection
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted earlier this month found that some 78% of Americans blame Trump's policies for rising prices that are outpacing their earnings, with the cost of living ranked as the top concern by majorities of both Republicans and Democrats. Even among Trump's own Republicans, 57% said costs have been growing faster than their paychecks.
Disapproval runs deeper on prices specifically: 68% of all respondents — including 40% of Republicans — said they were dissatisfied with Trump's handling of inflation, and about one in four Republicans disapproved of his handling of the economy overall, a view shared by 63% of independents and 92% of Democrats. The concerns have driven Trump's public approval to record lows.
Echoes of 2006
Analysts say the closest parallel is 2006, when President George W. Bush's Republicans lost both chambers of Congress while he was mired in the unpopular Iraq war. This time, the backlash could be bigger, because voters feel the economic pain — high gas prices and rising grocery bills — in a way they did not two decades ago.
"The bottom line is people are experiencing the impact of Trump's war and other policies," said Christopher Preble, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington. "Now voters have a chance to register their discontent with how he's dealing with all this."
The frustration is visible in places Republicans once took for granted. Jeffrey Talley, a 65-year-old retired bank examiner and registered Republican in Mission Hills, Kansas, told Reuters he is "pretty much against all the nonsense that's going on in the Middle East with the Iran war, and pushing up the price of gasoline," and plans to vote for a Democrat in a Senate race that has become unexpectedly competitive.
What is at stake on November 3
The elections will decide control of Congress for the next two years. Inflation has risen to the point where the Federal Reserve has pivoted to rate hikes to quell price increases — increases policymakers have attributed in part to global energy costs following the start of the Iran war and to the administration's aggressive import taxes. With Trump having campaigned in 2024 on a promise to lower prices "on day one," the gap between that pledge and voters' grocery and fuel bills is now the central fight of the midterms.
Sources: Reuters analysis (October 24, 2026); Reuters/Ipsos poll reporting (October 2026).