The Guardian view on the Republicans’ midterms struggle: Trump has circuses, but voters also want bread | Editorial

As prices keep rising, more of the president's supporters are asking what happened to the economic good times he promised

It is no great revelation that Donald Trump is enrichinghimself as president. He raked in $2.2bn in 2025, with his position and his personal interests frequently overlapping. Yet this week's poll finding that 34% of Republicans (and 66% of all American voters) think that he is using his position to make himself rich merits attention. Separately, voters in a Fox News poll last week put government corruption atthe top of their list of concerns - just ahead of inflation and high prices.

Mr Trump pledged that people would be better off if they voted for him. The billionaires are; not the rest. He promised to lower the costs of groceries (they have risen again) and to cut the price of gasoline to below $2 a gallon. It's more than double that, thanks to his reckless and illegal war on Iran. Tariffs have bumped up the cost of living too. Incumbents will always struggle when the economy does. But the gulf between his own prosperity and the daily life of his base now looks less like an inspiration and more like an insult. Cash offers seem unlikely to help much.