Democrats are hoping to regain the trust of voters on the economy as President Donald Trump’s second term becomes weighed down by weeks of market uncertainty.
Democrats have begun to focus more intently on the economic turmoil surrounding Trump as his tariffs upend the stock and bond markets, with the Dow Jones potentially on track to register the worst April since the Great Depression.
They’ve begun to hold press conferences accusing Republicans of imposing hefty taxes on everyday goods while warning that the dip in stocks is jeopardizing the savings of retirees. This week, Democrats have attempted to solidify that messaging with a series of town halls and other events dubbed a cost of living “week of action.”
The emphasis marks a role reversal from last year, when President Joe Biden’s presidency was hobbled by inflation, which reached a 40-year high on the heels of the pandemic. That November, Democrats were swept out of power as voters chose Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris as the best steward of the economy.
Republicans still believe the economy is a winning message for them. They are working to extend a slate of tax cuts from Trump’s first term that expire at the end of the year and argue the market pain is temporary. Trump has paused the “Liberation Day” tariffs that set off the investor panic, giving his advisers a chance to strike trade deals more favorable to the United States.
But the party is for now weathering a series of negative headlines that Democrats hope shape public sentiment into the 2026 elections. The International Monetary Fund announced Tuesday that it lowered its 2025 projections for U.S. growth to 1.8%, a 0.9 percentage point cut from the January forecast.
Eyes are also still on Elon Musk and his agency-slashing Department of Government Efficiency as its federal job cuts and rollback of aid programs anger voters in both red and blue districts.
“I personally think that if I were designing an ad right now for a progressive or Democratic super PAC, it would be basically film of Trump at a campaign rally … saying that inflation prices would go down on day one of his second administration,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told the Washington Examiner. “Well, we’re close to day 100, and they’re still going up.”
Trump has for months blamed his predecessor for the state of the economy, lamenting that he was faulted for the high cost of eggs soon after he took office.
Trump has also expressed impatience with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, most recently attacking Powell for not cutting interest rates at the speed he prefers. The president ruled out firing Powell on Tuesday, though he has long toyed with the idea.
Democrats, for their part, have focused squarely on Trump, saying it is his agenda that is threatening the economy.
“The guy who tried to trademark ‘you’re fired’ thinks axing the Fed chair will fix inflation,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said on X. “But trying to bully the Fed into cutting rates won’t stop the recession Trump caused – it just makes it worse.”
So far, Trump’s approval rating on the economy has declined, with a CNBC poll released last week showing him underwater for the first time in his presidential career.
One House Democrat said that voters should not be surprised Democrats are opposing the president in light of the turmoil, telling the Washington Examiner that Trump had his chance to “put together good policies.”
“I haven’t even had to think about whether or not to root for or against the administration, because they made it very easy,” the Democrat said.
“I’m always running for our country, but I’m running against really bad policies that hurt our country,” the lawmaker added.
The new line of attack reflects the messaging advantage held by the party out of power. While Biden was in office, Republicans faulted him for pandemic-era spending they say fueled inflation. For the first two years of his term, Biden had Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress, as Trump does today.
“This happens with sports teams,” Peter Loge, a political scientist at George Washington University, told the Washington Examiner. “If a sports team is doing really poorly, fans can either blame everybody on the team, or they’ll blame the coach. You blame the coach, you get a new coach, and the coach rebuilds the team.”
But, he noted, Democrats face the equal or perhaps even heavier burden of proving they have the tools to put the economy on the right track. Harris was criticized during and after her campaign for not presenting concrete ways she’d be different than Biden on the economy.
“I think that was Harris’s biggest failure during the campaign last year,” Bannon added. “She didn’t have any answers how to stop inflation, how to bring prices down, and Democrats have to come up with some creative ways of doing that. … They need to come up with their own program.”
Both Democratic and Republican strategists say it all comes down to credible results.
Republican leaders are barreling ahead with sweeping legislation that would renew Trump’s tax cuts alongside his priorities on border security and national defense. Meanwhile, they’ve attempted to blunt accusations that the bill would cut benefits for beneficiaries on Medicaid.
If the GOP doesn’t have tangible results by the fall or soon after, Republican strategist Jason Roe said Democrats will have the messaging advantage on the economy.
“If Republicans get through Labor Day and are able to show real savings in terms of reducing the deficits and having more accountability and transparency in government, and that people have not lost any Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or veterans benefits, not harmed in real life, if you will, as opposed to just the rhetoric that’s going around — I think Republicans will have the wind at their backs,” Roe told the Washington Examiner.
“But if we get to the end of this calendar year and people are not seeing other promises kept that the current disruption to the government and governance are supposed to accomplish, then I think we have problems,” Roe added.
Democrats’ response to the tax legislation has been to warn that the GOP wants to cut social programs to pay for tax cuts for the rich. But Roe said the greater risk to Republicans is not the messaging, but rather failing to implement the policies they have set out to achieve with unified control of Congress.
Congressional Republicans have similarly touted the tax bill as a way to ease market uncertainty due to the tariffs.
GOP SEARCHES FOR ‘FRESH MESSAGING’ TO COUNTER DEMOCRATS’ TAX CUT ATTACKS
In the interim, economic forecasters have raised the risk of a recession during Trump’s second term in office.
“I think it represents real risk for Republicans. If and when that were to occur, they better have some antidotes in the queue and the credibility to convince voters that those antidotes will improve things,” Roe said.
