This is why the generic ballot suggests a generational wipeout on Tuesday.
The US has never truly recovered from the 2021/2022 inflation wave. Rate hikes brought it down to 3-4%, but we never got close to the 2% Fed target, and inflation has only gotten worse over the last year.
The general public is deeply pessimistic about the state of the real economy, even as the S&P 500 and NASDAQ continue to hold up quite well. People are hurting, and they're turning to the Democrats in 2026 for the same reason they turned towards the GOP in 2024.
The problem, of course, is that Democrats have absolutely zero intention of making anyone's lives better aside from criminals, mentally ill degenerates, third world immigrants, and USAID grifters living in Northern Virginia who have been out of a job since DOGE.
A lot of normies are either staying home or voting Democrat in the naive belief that doing so will somehow help their personal situation, when in reality it's just laying the groundwork for Woke 2.
Americans have never been this pessimistic about their finances:
A record 41% of US consumers expect their financial situation to be worse over the next 12 months.
This figure has more than tripled since Q2 2024.
By comparison, during the 2008 Financial Crisis, this metric peaked at 23%.
This proportion is also significantly higher than in the 1970s and the 1980s, when CPI inflation was above 10%.
Furthermore, 31% of US consumers believe their personal financial situation will be worse in 5 years, double the proportion seen in the 1980s.
Americans feel as though we are in a recession.