More than almost any other single issue over the last 50 years, the economy can make or break a presidential campaign. It could happen again in November.
When she accepts her party’s nomination, Democrat Kamala Harris will be able to talk about what she describes as saving democracy and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She’ll be able to talk about Donald Trump and his criminal convictions and indictments.
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However, when she talks about the economy – she is likely to acknowledge, as she did in Atlanta last month, that prices are still too high.
The online U.S. inflation calculator shows inflation jumped after Biden took office in 2021, reaching a monthly high of 9.1 percent in June 2022, before dropping to 2.9 percent last month.
"But that's also a sign of a very strong economy and we've seen indications from a variety of sources that our economy is getting better," said Van Johnson, a convention delegate who is also the mayor of Savannah. "Inflation is cooling down. Consumer confidence is up and people are still spending."
Still, "prices are too high. I had to do back-to-school shopping. And I was like, 'Where are the 25 cent crayons?'" asked U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the Georgia Democratic party and the mother of a fourth grader.
She says she expects Harris, if elected, to aggressively take on rising prices of housing – a sector that drove much of inflation over the last three and a half years.
"When she is the next president, she's going to push back against these corporate landlords who continue to price people out of not just the ownership market of housing, but also the rental market," Williams said.
Republicans have pushed back against that, saying that trying to use the government to control prices is akin to communism.
When we talk to voters, they frequently say the economy is their biggest public policy issue. Polls show those voters tend to lean Republican.