Inflation Infused the Vote. But Could Trump Reignite It?

Many Americans fretted about inflation as they headed out to vote. But Donald J. Trump’s approach comes with risks of a renewed boost.

Americans have been chafing against higher prices for years now, propelling unhappy voters to the polls and helping to deliver the White House to the Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump.

But how Mr. Trump’s policies would help on costs is unclear. And in fact, many economists have warned that his proposals could instead make inflation worse.

Inflation measures how much prices are rising over a given period, usually a year. It picked up sharply starting in 2022 and remained rapid in 2023. While prices are no longer climbing as quickly, those two years of rapid increase have left costs for many common purchases — from eggs to apartments and restaurant meals — notably more expensive than consumers remember them being as recently as 2019 or 2020.

For months, that has weighed on consumer confidence and caused many voters to give the nation’s economic performance poor marks, even though the unemployment rate is very low and companies have been hiring.

Voters regularly cited the economy as a top concern in polls headed into the election, and they often suggested that they thought Mr. Trump would do a better job in managing it. While the economic perception gap between Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the democratic candidate, closed somewhat over time, it never fully faded.

While rapid inflation had been a global trend, Mr. Trump regularly pinned the blame for it on the Biden administration. And exit polls suggested that voters were indeed worried about the economy as they headed out to vote. Roughly three in four voters said that inflation had caused their families hardship over the past year.