U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during an event at The Villages Charter School at The Villages, Florida, U.S., May 1, 2026. REUTERS_Nathan Howard
Once a reliable red state, the state of Georgia is falling under the fear of rising inflation and fuel costs as President Donald Trump’s policies continue to punch family budgets. This could spell big trouble that Republicans need to win to maintain slim majorities in the House and Senate.
“Though Republican and Democratic voters in Georgia have vastly different opinions on most topics, they do agree on at least one thing: Inflationis the single most important issue facing the state today,” reports The Atlanta Journal Constitution Trursday.
“The current economy is definitely a challenge,” said Laura Rose, 77, who lives on a fixed income. Her spouse recently passed away, cutting her monthly income in half, but she said she is weathering the challenge for now. “I am not in economic trouble right now because I try to keep everything within my monthly income and I have savings. I don’t have a lot of savings, I’m not a millionaire, but I am OK.”
Rose added that she will “likely vote for whomever is the Democratic candidate for governor” in the upcoming gubernatorial race.
“The AJC’s polling in early 2025, just before Trump’s return to the White House, generally showed Georgians optimistic about economic prospects, though divided by party lines. Tariffs were also a concern,” reports AJC. “With tariffs still an issue and conflict in the Middle East sending oil prices skyward, inflation has reemerged as a challenge for consumers.”
AJC reports Trump campaigned on taming inflation.
Prices in Georgia are roughly 30 percent higher today compared with the start of the Covid pandemic, said Mark Vitner, chief economist ofPiedmont Crescent Capital, a longtime analyst of the Southeast economy. That hike puts households generating the state median income of about $90,000 in a pinch, forcing them to spend more of their money on necessities, such as food.
“With the cost of those necessities going up, they get squeezed out (of) spending on everything else,” said Vitner, adding that high gas prices are taking a huge bite out of budgets in and around the car-dependent Atlanta metro area.
“It could take beyond a year for prices to fully go down to their prewar level, and that’s pretty sobering,” said Vitner — meaning Trump’s self-induced inflation monster is likely not going anywhere before the mid-terms.