Immigration and inflation — two mainstays of Donald Trump’s electoral sweep in the 2024 presidential sweepstakes — have now turned in the Democrats’ favor, as recent elections, including Miami’s mayoral contest, indicate.
Miami just elected its first Democrat as mayor in nearly 30 years in Tuesday’s election, as Demo Eileen Higgins (pictured) swooped into office with 59 percent of the vote. Her Republican challenger, Emilio Gonzalez, limped to the finish line with 41 percent. Trump endorsed Gonzalez.
In a largely Hispanic city, voters were upset that longtime residents were being rounded up and deported. Another crucial issue was the cost of living, as prices have not only refused to go down at the grocery store, but have actually risen under Trump.
“He [Trump] and I have very different points of view on how we should treat our residents, many of whom are immigrants,” Higgins said in an interview.
The president, in turn, has called the issue of affordability a hoax, a designation few of modest means would agree with. He has also begun a re-emphasis on taking his policies to the people, and held a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this week. Headlines from that rally focused more on the Fed and Trump’s Venezuela policy than on concrete measures to lower prices.
In other recent contests, Republicans trailed badly and lost in elections in New Jersey and Virginia and barely scraped by in GOP-friendly Tennessee.
Trouble for the GOP in 2026? You betcha unless incomes rise and prices stabilize for everyone except the upper crust, whose wealth makes inflation basically a non-issue.
