President Trump launched his new affordability-focused roadshow Tuesday in northeastern Pennsylvania — the first stop on a high-stakes messaging blitz meant to steady the White House after Republicans suffered a bruising off-year election cycle in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City.
“You know, tariffs are bringing us hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said, touting some of his early economic accomplishments. “I just helped our farmers out because they’re starting to do really well.”
Trump blamed high prices on the Biden administration and said his policies will clean up the mess.
“They caused the high prices,” Trump said. “We’re bringing them down. It’s a simple message. “
The tour comes after a rough patch for the GOP, with significant losses in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City in November, which has been attributed by Democrats and Republicans to the “affordability crisis.”
This year’s elections saw an erosion of gains Trump made in 2024 in key districts, including among Hispanic and Latino voters –handing Democrats fresh openings heading into the 2026 midterms.
Now, the president is recalibrating, hoping to refocus voters on the economy — an issue that helped him secure the White House last year, even as polls show growing skepticism in 2025.
It comes after White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a video published Monday said Trump is “going to campaign like it’s 2024 again” for next year’s midterm elections, using his pizzazz on the campaign trail to help Republicans keep the House and Senate the same way he did in presidential election years.
“Typically in the midterms, it’s not about who’s sitting at the White House. You localize the election, and you keep the federal officials out of it,” Wiles told “The Mom View” by conservative organization Moms for America. “We’re actually going to turn that on its head, and put him on the ballot, because so many of those low propensity voters are Trump voters.”
In his speech, Trump touted lower gas prices and trumpeted his administration’s economic wins on energy, while promising prosperity under trade policies.
“You’re going to see what happens over the next two years. It’s like a miracle taking place.”
The White House sees the event as a reset — the beginning of a sustained push to convince voters that Trump’s aggressive trade policies and tax-cut plans are priming the country for long-term prosperity.
But recent data suggests the task may be tougher than Trumpworld wants to admit.
Nearly half of registered voters said after the elections that Trump’s economic policies — including his ongoing trade war with China and other major partners — are doing more harm than good, according to a November Fox News survey.
Democrats smell an opening and have launched their own counteroffensive with a pocketbook-focused campaign aimed at tying Trump to rising costs and widening inequality.
Trump has called the affordability message a “con job” from a party that presided over 9.1% inflation under former President Joe Biden.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attempted to bat down concerns Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation”, insisting the economy is on “strong footing.”
“We’re going to finish the year, despite the [Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer] shutdown, with 3% real GDP growth,” he said. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its full third-quarter report Dec. 23.
“The economy has been better than we thought. We’ve had 4% GDP growth in a couple of quarters,” Bessent added.
The latest inflation report, delayed more than a month due to the shutdown, showed consumer prices up about 3% from September 2024 to September 2025.
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