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Can Donald Trump win back suburban voters?

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On a hot and muggy evening in Rochester Hills, a suburb of Detroit, the local Republican club is meeting to hone battle plans for the 2024 election. Leading the workshop is Amy Hawkins, an energetic millennial activist and supporter of Donald Trump. She tells the crowd of mostly 60-somethings that the Republican Party needs an attitude adjustment. Don’t shun those who disagree with you, she urges; instead, recognise that “we don’t all have to sing from the same songbook.” Don’t show up in MAGA hats to yell at local school-board officials, she implores; do bake them cookies and tell them you’re praying for them. “What if we became known as the happy party?” she muses.
It is easy to see why Ms Hawkins has chosen to recalibrate Trumpism in this enclave of stately homes occupied by voters with college degrees. When Mr Trump won the White House in 2016, he took Michigan by a mere 11,000 votes. He lost the state’s white, college-educated suburban voters by five points. In 2020 that deficit swelled to 17 points and he lost Michigan to Joe Biden by 154,000 votes. Suburbanites’ rebuke of Mr Trump accounted for three-quarters of the swing against him. To win this year, Mr Trump will need to lure at least some of them back.

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He has work to do. According to national polls from YouGov/The Economist, the former president is polling nationally at 43% among white suburban voters with a college degree. That is three points less than the share he won in 2020, according to Catalist, a progressive political-data firm. How, then, did Mr Trump build a steady lead over Mr Biden this summer? Among educated white suburbanites, at least, it is not so much that Mr Trump is winning; it is that Mr Biden was losing, and the question now is whether a new Democratic nominee can reverse that trend. In 2020 the president won 53% of white, college-educated suburban voters nationally. Across June and July 2024 Mr Biden polled at 43%.

Now that Democrats are to replace him with a younger candidate, will the picture change? There is clear evidence that Kamala Harris, the presumptive nominee, would have an opportunity to improve on Mr Biden’s recent performance. In 2022 Michigan’s popular governor, Gretchen Whitmer, won re-election by a comfortable 11-point margin. She swept the state’s suburbs by 17 points. While there are no apples-to-apples figures available about Mr Biden’s standing in Michigan when he left the race, it is clear from national numbers that his margin was much smaller than that. Ms Harris could attempt to close the gap.

Michigan, suburban counties*, 2023

Share of total votes cast by

suburban voters†, 2020, %

*50% or more of the population live in a suburban zipcode
†Defined by Catalist

Sources: Catalist; Jed Kolko; The Economist

Michigan, suburban counties*, 2023

Share of total votes cast by suburban voters†, 2020, %

*50% or more of the population live in a suburban zipcode
†Defined by Catalist

Sources: Catalist; Jed Kolko; The Economist

Michigan, suburban counties*, 2023

Share of total votes cast by suburban voters†,

2020, %

*50% or more of the population live in a suburban zipcode

†Defined by Catalist

Sources: Catalist; Jed Kolko; The Economist

This summer, particularly after Mr Biden’s cataclysmic debate performance on June 27th and until he ended his campaign on July 21st, Mr Trump has maintained a steady lead in national polls and in every swing state. Yet as the ceiling on his vote-share shows, Mr Trump remains vulnerable in the suburbs. A Democratic comeback would probably pass through swing-state suburban counties like Oakland.

Rochester Hills may appear as if it belongs in a 1960s John Updike novel, but the suburbs are not what they used to be, politically or demographically. For one, they are more racially diverse. Since 1980, the number of white residents in Oakland County has held steady but the number of non-whites has grown from 60,000 to 320,000 in 2020. The county has shifted left during this period; greater diversity is probably one factor, along with changing views among college-educated white voters.

Top: Craig Rood, 45, outside his home in Northville, Michigan, on July 2nd 2024. Mr Rood said his greatest concern in the election was the threat Donald Trump posed to democracy.
Bottom: Rose Smith, 67, in Farmington Hills, Michigan, on July 6th 2024. She said the most important issue in the election for her is how mental-health services are delivered. Image: Nic Antaya

Polarisation along educational lines has also changed how suburbanites vote, just as it has in cities and the countryside. Consider Michigan’s tale of two suburban bellwether counties. Between 1972 and 2012, Oakland, where half of adults have college degrees, and its working-class neighbour, Macomb County, where a quarter have degrees, were regarded as lockstep predictors of Michigan’s vote in presidential elections.

Oakland voted for the candidate that won the state ten out of 11 times, while Macomb did so nine times. The average difference in candidate margins across the two counties was just four points. But Mr Trump changed all that. In 2016, Oakland and Macomb diverged by 20 points and Mr Trump won Macomb with 54% of the vote. (Hillary Clinton prevailed in Oakland.)

A step to the left

Presidential vote margin by county, percentage points, sized by population

Since that election, Republicans have found themselves on shaky ground in Michigan. Their once-strong state party fell into disarray, riven by internecine struggles and swamped with debt. And Republicans would surely prefer to forget about the past three elections in the state. In 2018, the first midterm election after Mr Trump took office, Republicans “got slaughtered in Michigan”, says Jason Cabel Roe, a veteran party strategist in the state. Ms Whitmer won the governor’s race, and Democrat women won races for attorney-general and secretary of state. Two more women Democrats, Haley Stevens and Elissa Slotkin, won competitive congressional races, marking the first time since the 1930s that Oakland County had no Republican representatives in the House. “It was very much the year of the woman,” Mr Roe adds.

Michigan, vote margin relative to state average*,

percentage points

Sources: Catalist; Michigan Department of State

It got worse for Republicans in 2022. As Ms Whitmer won her second term easily, a ballot initiative to enshrine abortion in the state’s constitution passed by 13 points. Democrats took control of the state House and Senate, and established their first trifecta in 38 years, controlling the governorship and both chambers of the legislature.

With abortion rights in the state already established, that issue—a probable rallying point for Ms Harris’s campaign—has less salience in Michigan. Suburbanites are most concerned about the economy this time around, according to polling from Emerson College. Generally, Mr Trump polled better than Mr Biden on that issue. Yet so far, there has been little enthusiasm for this election. In the summer of 2020 polling from YouGov/The Economist showed that some 70% of white, college-educated suburban voters were extremely or very enthusiastic about that year’s election. Across June 2024 only about half said the same. In an initial poll after Mr Biden left the race, enthusiasm among Democrats rose to 54%, compared with 43% in a previous poll.

Top: Joe Rizzo, 86, at the tennis courts at Dwight D. Eisenhower High School in Shelby Township, Michigan, on July 6th 2024. Mr Rizzo said inflation had eaten away at his savings and had become an important political issue for him.
Bottom: Cheri McQueen, 61, at Red Knapp’s in Rochester, Michigan, on July 5th 2024. Ms McQueen said she plans to vote for Trump in November because of his economic record while president. Image: Nic Antaya

Ms Hawkins’s pitch in Rochester Hills for a kinder, gentler form of Trumpism reflects recent attempts by the national Republican Party to consolidate and extend its candidate’s lead by toning down MAGA pugilism and welcoming never-Trumpers back into the fold. The effort was on display at the party convention in Milwaukee. It is not a natural script for Mr Trump and he did not stick to it for long, but some of his allies on the front lines understand what it takes to win in blue-leaning areas. “The formula is to trim yourself a little bit on the rhetoric and the issues that you talk about,” Mr Roe says. The “guiding principle is to give non-Republicans permission to vote for a Republican.” Even one carrying the baggage of Donald Trump.

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Economics

Trump tariffs’ effect on consumer prices debated by economists

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The U.S. government is set to increase tariff rates on several categories of imported products. Some economists tracking these trade proposals say the higher tariff rates could lead to higher consumer prices.

One model constructed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston suggests that in an “extreme” scenario, heightened taxes on U.S. imports could result in a 1.4 percentage point to 2.2 percentage point increase to core inflation. This scenario assumes 60% tariff rates on Chinese imports and 10% tariff rates on imports from all other countries.

The researchers note that many other tariff proposals have surfaced since they published their findings in February 2025. 

Price increases could come across many categories, including new housing and automobiles, alongside consumer services such as nursing, public transportation and finance. 

“People might think, ‘Oh, tariffs can only affect the goods that I buy. It can’t affect the services,'” said Hillary Stein, an economist at the Boston Fed. “Those hospitals are buying inputs that might be, for example, … medical equipment that comes from abroad.” 

White House economists say tariffs will not meaningfully contribute to inflation. In a statement to CNBC, Stephen Miran, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, said that “as the world’s largest source of consumer demand, the U.S. holds all the leverage, which means foreign suppliers will have to eat the economic burden or ‘incidence’ of the tariffs.” 

Assessing the impact of the administration’s full economic agenda has been a challenge for central bank leaders. The Federal Open Market Committee decided to leave its target for the federal funds rate unchanged at the meeting in March. 

The Fed targets its overnight borrowing rate at between 4.25% and 4.5%, with the effective federal funds rate at 4.33% on March 31, according to the New York Fed. The core personal consumption expenditures price index inflation rate rose to 2.8% in February, according to the Commerce Department. Forecasts of U.S. gross domestic product suggest that the economy will continue to grow at a 1.7% rate in 2025, albeit at a slower pace than what was forecast in January.  

Consumers in the U.S. and businesses around the world are bracing for impact. 
 
“There is a reason why companies went outside of the U.S.,” said Gregor Hirt, chief investment officer at Allianz Global Investors. “Most of the time it was because it was cheaper and more productive.” 

Watch the video above to learn how much inflation tariffs may cause.

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Economics

Trump’s tariff gambit will raise the stakes for an economy already looking fragile

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks alongside entertainer Kid Rock before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on March 31, 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

President Donald Trump is set Wednesday to begin the biggest gamble of his nascent second term, wagering that broad-based tariffs on imports will jumpstart a new era for the U.S. economy.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

As the president prepares his “liberation day” announcement, household sentiment is at multi-year lows. Consumers worry that the duties will spark another round of painful inflation, and investors are fretting that higher prices will mean lower profits and a tougher slog for the battered stock market.

What Trump is promising is a new economy not dependent on deficit spending, where Canada, Mexico, China and Europe no longer take advantage of the U.S. consumer’s desire for ever-cheaper products.

The big problem right now is no one outside the administration knows quite how those goals will be achieved, and what will be the price to pay.

“People always want everything to be done immediately and have to know exactly what’s going on,” said Joseph LaVorgna, who served as a senior economic advisor during Trump’s first term in office. “Negotiations themselves don’t work that way. Good things take time.”

For his part, LaVorgna, who is now chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, is optimistic Trump can pull it off, but understands why markets are rattled by the uncertainty of it all.

“This is a negotiation, and it needs to be judged in the fullness of time,” he said. “Eventually we’re going to get some details and some clarity, and to me, everything will fit together. But right now, we’re at that point where it’s just too soon to know exactly what the implementation is likely to look like.”

Here’s what we do know: The White House intends to implement “reciprocal” tariffs against its trading partners. In other words, the U.S. is going to match what other countries charge to import American goods into their countries. Most recently, a figure of 20% blanket tariffs has been bandied around, though LaVorgna said he expects the number to be around 10%, but something like 60% for China.

What is likely to emerge, though, will be far more nuanced as Trump seeks to reduce a record $131.4 billion U.S. trade deficit. Trump professes his ability to make deals, and the saber-rattling of draconian levies on other countries is all part of the strategy to get the best arrangement possible where more goods are manufactured domestically, boosting American jobs and providing a fairer landscape for trade.

The consequences, though, could be rough in the near term.

Potential inflation impact

On their surface, tariffs are a tax on imports and, theoretically, are inflationary. In practice, though, it doesn’t always work that way.

During his first term, Trump imposed heavy tariffs with nary a sign of longer-term inflation outside of isolated price increases. That’s how Federal Reserve economists generally view tariffs — a one-time “transitory” blip but rarely a generator of fundamental inflation.

This time, though, could be different as Trump attempts something on a scale not seen since the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs in 1930 that kicked off a global trade war and would be the worst-case scenario of the president’s ambitions.

“This could be a major rewiring of the domestic economy and of the global economy, a la Thatcher, a la Reagan, where you get a more enabled private sector, streamlined government, a fair trading system,” Mohamed El-Erian, the Allianz chief economic advisor, said Tuesday on CNBC. “Alternatively, if we get tit-for-tat tariffs, we slip into stagflation, and that stagflation becomes well anchored, and that becomes problematic.”

Tariffs could be a major rewiring of the domestic and global economy, says Mohamed El-Erian

The U.S. economy already is showing signs of a stagflationary impulse, perhaps not along the lines of the 1970s and early ’80s but nevertheless one where growth is slowing and inflation is proving stickier than expected.

Goldman Sachs has lowered its projection for economic growth this year to barely positive. The firm is citing the “the sharp recent deterioration in household and business confidence” and second-order impacts of tariffs as administration officials are willing to trade lower growth in the near term for their longer-term trade goals.

Federal Reserve officials last month indicated an expectation of 1.7% gross domestic product growth this year; using the same metric, Goldman projects GDP to rise at just a 1% rate.

In addition, Goldman raised its recession risk to 35% this year, though it sees growth holding positive in the most-likely scenario.

Broader economic questions

However, Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust, thinks the recession risk is even higher at 40%, and not just because of tariff impacts.

“We were already on the pessimistic side of the spectrum,” he said. “A lot of that is coming from the fact that we didn’t think the consumer was strong enough heading into the year, and we see growth slowing because of the tariffs.”

Tilley also sees the labor market weakening as companies hold off on hiring as well as other decisions such as capital expenditure-type investments in their businesses.

That view on business hesitation was backed up Tuesday in an Institute for Supply Management survey in which respondents cited the uncertain climate as an obstacle to growth.

“Customers are pausing on new orders as a result of uncertainty regarding tariffs,” said a manager in the transportation equipment industry. “There is no clear direction from the administration on how they will be implemented, so it’s harder to project how they will affect business.”

While Tilley thinks the concern over tariffs causing long-term inflation is misplaced — Smoot-Hawley, for instance, actually ended up being deflationary — he does see them as a danger to an already-fragile consumer and economy as they could tend to weaken activity further.

“We think of the tariffs as just being such a weight on growth. It would drive up prices in the initial couple [inflation] readings, but it would create so much economic weakness that they would end up being net deflationary,” he said. “They’re a tax hike, they’re contractionary, they’re going to weigh on the economy.”

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Economics

Euro zone inflation, March 2025

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A man pushes his shopping cart filled with food shopping and walks in front of an aisle of canned vegetables with “Down price” labels in an Auchan supermarket in Guilherand Granges, France, March 8, 2025.

Nicolas Guyonnet | Afp | Getty Images

Annual Euro zone inflation dipped as expected to 2.2% in March, according to flash data from statistics agency Eurostat published Tuesday.

The Tuesday print sits just below the 2.3% final reading of February.

So called core-inflation, which excludes more volatile food, energy, alcohol and tobacco prices, edged lower to 2.4% in March from 2.6% in February. The closely watched services inflation print, which had long been sticky around the 4% mark, also fell to 3.4% in March from 3.7% in the preceding month.

Recent preliminary data had showed that March inflation came in lower than forecast in several major euro zone economies. Last month’s inflation hit 2.3% in Germany and fell to 2.2% in Spain, while staying unchanged at 0.9% in France.

The figures, which are harmonized across the euro area for comparability, boosted expectations for a further 25-basis-point interest rate cut from the European Central Bank during its upcoming meeting on April 17. Markets were pricing in an around 76% chance of such a reduction ahead of the release of the euro zone inflation data on Tuesday, according to LSEG data.

The European Union is set to be slapped with tariffs due in effect later this week from the U.S. administration of Donald Trump — including a 25% levy on imported cars.

While the exact impact of the tariffs and retaliatory measures remains uncertain, many economists have warned for months that their effect could be inflationary.

This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.

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