Luis Escarraman’s Truck and Freight Truck Driving in the Presence of a Donald Trump-Like Term: “What have we learned in the last two years?”

EASTON, Pa. — Luis Escarraman says he is nostalgic for the Trump economy. The 41-year-old Republican owns his own truck and hauls freight from New Jersey to California. He said maintenance, parts, and diesel fuel have become more expensive.

He is not alone. Polling shows that voters think the presumptive Republican will do better on the economy than the incumbent. It’s an important factor, but not the only one, as voters prepare for Election Day in November.

He said that he was weighing a lot of things in deciding who he supports politically. Right now, he is concerned about the increase in migration and the money the U.S. government is spending on conflicts overseas, as well as the high cost of living.

The life under former president Donald Trump was quite troubling to him. “I know it was a lot of fights in the country,” he said. It wasn’t as bad as a civil war, but it was better financially.

The Boundary County of Northampton, Pennsylvania, is a Boomerang County: Voters in 2008 and 2012 voted to Trump but then switched to Biden

NPR found that there was a lot of people frustrated with inflation and the high cost of housing in Northampton County, but also that there were other priorities to be made during the election season.

In 2008 and 2012 Northampton voters voted for Barack Obama but switched to Trump and then chose Joe Biden in 2020, meaning Northampton is one of 25 “boomerang” counties in the US.

Not one person NPR talked to outside grocery stories or polling sites last week felt optimistic about the economy, regardless of their politics.

“When Trump was in office, it was sad, but my 401(k) was just going up and up and up. Ruthann Arris is a Democrat who is retired, and she said it was wonderful to watch it.

In Trump’s first three years in office, the S&P 500 index rose 46%. The S&P 500 index rose 26% during Biden’s first three years in office.

Source: Voters in this ‘boomerang’ county say they’re nostalgic for the Trump economy

The Issue of “The USA is More Stable”: Why Voting for the President is Harder than We’ve Always Dreamed

But she said she still intends to vote for Biden this November. She said that he comes across as better than the alternative. “The USA is more stable.” It’s not worth the big gain a 401(k) will make in the long run.

In a NBC News survey in April voters said inflation was the biggest concern facing the country, and that they favored Trump on the issue. But when it came to identifying an issue that is “so important that you would vote for or against a candidate solely on that basis,” voters pointed to democracy, abortion or immigration/border security, depending on their politics.

Greg Poff is a Republican and said he is concerned about border security because people want to complain about the economy. “If you control the flow of people and get the people that are not supposed to be here out, everything else will fall like dominoes.”

On the campaign trail Biden points to the strong jobs market and the growth of infrastructure and the chip sectors thanks to the legislation he has signed.

One challenge is that many people are still using pre-pandemic prices as their benchmark, so any other economic message the president is trying to send isn’t breaking through.

“I think it’s hard because people don’t like things to cost more than they did before. Julie Smith, an economist at Lafayette College in Northampton County, said it would be difficult to convince people that it’s not true.