President Donald Trump is telling voters that inflation is largely solved and prices are dropping quickly. The latest federal data do not support that broad claim, while a growing number of Republican campaigns are openly talking about expensive groceries, housing, gasoline and utilities as the midterms approach.

President Donald Trump has spent recent weeks describing a rapid reversal in the cost of living. In an Aug. 30 Fox News interview, he said he had “largely taken care of inflation.” Four days earlier, he said prices were “coming down very rapidly,” and at an Aug. 21 rally he said “the prices are all coming down.”

Those statements collapse two different economic ideas: a lower inflation rate and lower prices. Inflation measures how quickly the overall price level is changing. Prices can keep rising even when inflation slows. And the latest government reports show that, on balance, U.S. consumer prices are still higher than they were a year ago and higher than at the beginning of Trump’s second term.

What the inflation data show

The Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% in July on a seasonally adjusted basis and was 3.4% higher than a year earlier. The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, another broad federal inflation measure, rose 0.2% in July and 3.7% over 12 months.

The broad CPI index also remains well above its level at the start of Trump’s second term. The seasonally adjusted index stood at 318.961 in January 2025 and 333.918 in July 2026, an increase of about 4.7%. That does not mean every individual product became 4.7% more expensive, but it directly contradicts the idea that the overall price level has fallen since early 2025.

There are categories in which prices have dropped recently. In July, the CPI energy index fell 1.5% from June and gasoline fell 2.9%. Food at home slipped 0.1% for the month. Over the prior 12 months, however, energy was still up 14.7% and gasoline was up 24.6%.

Why lower inflation is not lower prices

The distinction matters politically because Americans experience the level of prices, not merely the rate at which that level changes. If a grocery bill rises sharply for several years and then increases more slowly, the household still faces a higher bill. Disinflation can be good news without reversing the earlier increase.

That was also a central source of frustration during Joe Biden’s presidency. Inflation peaked in 2022 and later slowed substantially, but many voters remained unhappy because prices did not return to their pre inflation levels. Republicans successfully made that gap between improving inflation statistics and household experience a major political argument.

Trump is now vulnerable to the same distinction. Saying inflation is “taken care of” is a judgment that can be debated, but saying prices broadly are falling is a factual claim that can be checked against price indexes. The latest CPI and PCE reports show continued inflation, not economy wide deflation.

The PCE index is also running well above the Federal Reserve’s long term 2% inflation goal. That does not mean all categories are accelerating together. It does mean the government’s broad price measures do not support a description of rapidly falling consumer prices. July core PCE, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was 3.3% higher than a year earlier.

GOP ads use a different message

Some Republican candidates are campaigning in language that sounds much closer to what households tell pollsters. In Iowa, Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn opens one ad from his family farm by saying gas, groceries and other expenses are high and that Iowa families are hurting before turning to an attack on his Democratic opponent.

Rep. Zach Nunn, another Iowa Republican, has made housing affordability a central theme in a television spot. His campaign says the ad connects rising housing costs with a shortage of skilled workers and builders, then pitches more training for plumbers, electricians, carpenters and HVAC technicians.

The same pattern appears in Texas. A political group affiliated with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz launched a roughly $1.7 million advertising campaign to help GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton and attack Democrat James Talarico. One line in the ad tells viewers their costs are “skyrocketing” before pivoting to an argument about Talarico’s record.

None of those messages attacks Trump directly. Their function is different: acknowledge pain, establish empathy and then blame a Democratic opponent or offer a Republican policy response. But the language still creates an unmistakable contrast with the president’s insistence that prices are already falling broadly and rapidly.

Gasoline sharpens the contradiction

Gasoline makes that contrast especially difficult to avoid because drivers encounter the price in unusually visible form. AAA’s national average for regular gasoline was about $4.14 a gallon on Sept. 3. In late August, Reuters reported that gasoline was running around $1 a gallon higher than a year earlier.

The Iran conflict has been an important part of that increase. Disruptions and risks around the Strait of Hormuz have pushed oil markets higher, and Trump has acknowledged that gasoline remains elevated while predicting it will fall sharply when the war ends. On Sept. 3, oil prices were again climbing as renewed fighting increased supply concerns.

The July CPI shows why a short term decline does not settle the issue. Gasoline fell from June to July, but it remained 24.6% higher than in July 2025. A politician can accurately say gasoline has come down from a recent peak while still being wrong to imply that consumers are paying less than they were a year earlier.

That tension is especially consequential for Republicans because the president has made energy prices part of his economic sales pitch. Candidates in competitive races have less room for sweeping claims when voters can compare them with the number displayed at the gas station.

Voters are focused on affordability

Polling suggests the Republican campaigns acknowledging high costs are responding to a real electoral problem, not merely changing tone. A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted Aug. 28-31 found that 47% of registered voters named the cost of living as the single most important factor in deciding their midterm vote.

The same poll found 71% of U.S. adults disapproved of Trump’s handling of the cost of living, while 22% approved. Reuters reported that the disapproval included 40% of Republicans. An earlier Reuters/Ipsos survey found voters preferred Democrats over Republicans on handling the cost of living, 36% to 28%, although more than a third chose neither party or were unsure.

A July Fox News poll pointed in the same direction. Voters gave Democrats a 10 point advantage over Republicans on inflation and a nine point edge on the economy. Those results do not guarantee Democratic gains in November, but they help explain why Republican candidates are unwilling to campaign as though affordability concerns have disappeared.

The problem is broader than partisanship. Pew Research Center found in July that 66% of Americans were very concerned about food and consumer goods prices, 64% about housing and 54% about electricity. Among Republicans and Republican leaning adults, 55% were very concerned about food and consumer goods prices and 52% about housing.

Democrats are exploiting the gap

Democrats are already building ads around Republican statements that appear disconnected from those concerns. In North Carolina, Democratic Senate nominee Roy Cooper released a Sept. 1 ad using clips of Republican opponent Michael Whatley saying grocery, gasoline, housing and inflation were down and, in another appearance, that there was “no inflation.”

The timing of the clips matters. Some of Whatley’s remarks came in 2025, when the inflation rate was lower than it is now. But even then, a lower inflation rate did not mean the overall price level was falling. Cooper’s ad uses that technical distinction as a political weapon, presenting Whatley’s language as evidence that he is out of touch with household costs.

Republicans are trying to reverse the attack by tying Democratic candidates to taxes, spending and state level cost increases. That strategy could still work in individual races, especially where voters distrust both parties on the economy. The important shift is that Republicans are increasingly fighting over who can reduce costs rather than arguing that the affordability problem has already vanished.

A Republican National Committee fundraising message sent under Vice President JD Vance’s name made the point unintentionally. “If you can’t give right now, don’t,” the message said before adding, “Groceries cost what they cost.” The appeal did not assign blame, but it treated strained household budgets as a practical reality.

Trump is doubling down

Trump, meanwhile, is preparing to make himself a central figure in the closing midterm campaign. At a White House gathering on Sept. 2, he told Republican lawmakers he planned to campaign heavily in roughly 35 competitive races and urged the party to run on his administration’s record.

That strategy raises the stakes of his economic message. If Republican candidates are telling voters that housing, fuel and groceries remain painfully expensive while Trump tells the same voters prices are rapidly falling, Democrats have an opening to frame the difference as a credibility problem.

The White House can point to genuine favorable movements in selected categories, including recent monthly declines in gasoline and some food components. Trump can also argue that policies still working through the economy will eventually reduce costs. But forecasts and selective price drops are different from the present tense claim that prices overall are already coming down.

What happens before November

The next major inflation test arrives Sept. 11, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release the August CPI. One report will not settle the political argument, but it will provide the newest broad measure of whether consumer prices are accelerating, slowing or actually declining.

Until then, the available evidence is straightforward. Some prices have fallen over short periods. Others remain sharply higher than a year ago. The overall consumer price level is still above where it stood at the beginning of Trump’s second term, and both CPI and PCE measures show continued inflation.

That is why Republican advertising may be more revealing than the president’s rhetoric. Candidates in close races have strong incentives to speak to what voters believe they are experiencing. Many are choosing to acknowledge that everyday costs remain high, then argue that Republican policies are the answer.

Trump is choosing a more sweeping claim: that inflation is largely solved and prices are coming down rapidly. The first part is debatable as a political assessment. The second is not supported by the broad federal price data available in early September.

For Republicans, the challenge is not merely to defend the administration’s economic record. It is to persuade voters that they understand the problem voters are describing. Their own ads increasingly suggest that, whatever Trump says about falling prices, GOP campaigns know affordability is still very much on the ballot.