Bloomberg Article || archive version

The linked article talks about young men who voted for Trump but are now becoming disillusioned. While there might be other factors the primary cause appears to be economic. I'll also grant that this is an anecdote but there is lots of non-anecdotal evidence that this is a widespread feeling. The article starts with:

(Dallas Cruze earns) $85,000 as a health and safety coordinator for construction sites, he will still be around $350 shy of paying his bills this month.

Cruze works in Detroit and is a S Carolina resident. The point I want to make is one about personal, micro, economies and a bit of a prediction:

Cruze earns 85k. I am assuming he is single (no ring on the pictured left hand). He gets about 7k a month. I would assume that about 1k of that goes to the government for taxes.

On a global level a person working with a take home pay of 6,000 USD is not poor. Even for the US that isn't all that bad (I am well aware that there are much more wealthy people). Detroit is also just not a particularly expensive city.

That Cruze is 350 USD short on this month's bills is more an issue of budgeting than pay. Increasing his pay by a few hundred bucks a month isn't the solution. To get to where Cruze probably has: a car payment that is expensive, cc debt, and maybe student loans (or he has a house in S Carolina that should be sold).

The issue for Cruze isn't that he doesn't have income; he actually has quite a bit of income. The issue is that debt accumulation in the US has become exceptionally easy. Highly leveraged lifestyles have become much more normalized both by US peers and by the banking institutions that make the loans. CC debt (plus pay later debt that is basically the same) is super high (in to the 1.2 T range). Negative equity car trade-ins have become standard practice for dealerships (average negative equity on trade-ins has gotten to 7k).

Cruze probably doesn't care about the unemployment rate; lowering that to 3% (it is 4.2% now) isn't going to move the needle. Bringing inflation down to 2% would probably be good though 3.7% for CPI is far from terrible. These typically reported on economic indicators won't make much of a difference for Cruze. What does make a difference is if the dealership can get him to trade in the Chevy truck for a GMC that has 'only' 200 USD more a month in payments on a 96 month loan.

Cruze's economy is much more affected by trends in a finance system that seems to take a back seat in the current political discourse. It also seems to be outside of anything that a potential Democratic (or GOP for that matter) president + congress would actually do. Until these problems (an over leveraged lifestyle) are fixed on a societal level I don't really see anyone feeling positively about the economy in the long term.

Nate covers a lot of topics here. He discusses the Fox and Marist LV/RV differences around 6 minutes in. He discusses the Wedgwood Polls scandal. And talks about the likelihood of split ticket voting.

A huge notable swing is Republican STRONGLY approve decaying -34. Also Independent disapproval swing +31.

Jan 2025 Poll: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/reuters-ipsos-trump-inauguration-survey

Oct 2026 Poll: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/reutersipsos-mid-october-survey