Wednesday’s consumer-price index report showed a 9.1% year-over-year jump. Following similar news last month, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates by 0.75 percentage point. This spells double trouble for middle- and low-income Americans: increased expenses for the former and job losses from the latter. But the economic squeeze on these Americans is no new phenomenon, a truth that voting patterns have been better at revealing than official inflation data.
Take the swing districts that decided the 2016 election. In Freeborn County, Minn., along the border with Iowa, Barack Obama dominated the vote in 2008, winning with a 17% margin and 14% in 2012—only for Donald Trump to win by 17% in 2016 and 16% in 2020.
