Mitchell Brown, a Republican pollster, has noticed something new in the focus groups he runs with voters in battleground states: "They know exactly, to the dollar, the amount of their power bill," he said. The same, he says, happens with health costs, or the price of beef.

To Brown, it is a sign that views of the economy pose a clear danger for his party in this year's midterms, a concern echoed by other Republican strategists. With voters' negative impressions now hardening, some Republican and independent analysts say President Trump and his GOP allies have little time to regain a key asset: their image as the party better suited to handle the economy.

For the GOP, the fear is that voters who backed the party in 2024 believing Trump would ease the cost of living will stay home or defect this November.

"The set of events that would need to happen to produce a real change in the Republican Party's fortune is pretty big," said John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University.

The downbeat mood on the economy stands in contrast to a stock market that has soared as enthusiasm over artificial intelligence has taken hold. Consumer spending has remained solid, even in the face of high gasoline prices, buoyed in part by this year's tax cuts.

The best characterization of the economy in Trump's second term, based on the main measures, might be "so-so." Gross domestic product expanded at a 1.9% annual rate over the six quarters ended in June, which compares with 2.4% during former President Joe Biden's final year in office. The unemployment rate has barely budged, edging up from 4% in January 2025 to a still-low 4.1% as of July, although job growth has slowed markedly.

Inflation is the sorest point: Consumer prices were 3.5% higher in June than a year earlier, according to the Labor Department, versus a January 2025 inflation rate of 3%. That ate away at wage gains -- average hourly earnings were up 3.5% on the year in June.

Americans' feelings about the economy are decidedly worse than those numbers suggest. In several surveys, only about one-quarter of respondents rate the economy as excellent or good, while about three-quarters say it is in fair or poor shape.

One result of the sour mood: a significant reversal in views of the GOP's ability to manage the economy. In many polls, more voters see the Democratic Party as a better economic steward than the Republican Party -- a rare finding in recent years.

For the first time since 2010, Fox News polls find voters citing Democrats as better on the economy than Republicans. Democrats led by 4 points on the question in April and by 9 points in July, whereas the GOP was viewed as the better economic manager by as much as 15 points in 2022 and 2023.

In a cautionary note to Republicans in Congress, GOP strategist David Winston in June cited similar reversals in the GOP's standing -- on its handling of inflation, jobs and the overall economy. "If Democrats could sustain leads on the economy and win double digit margins among independents as some polls show, a Blue Wave is possible," he wrote.

In its polling and door-knocking to engage swing-state voters, Americans for Prosperity Action, a limited-government super PAC, has found that about one in five Republican-leaning voters is at risk of staying home or defecting, due in large part to economic worries, the group has said. Drawing a contrast with Democratic policy, however, brings 60% of those voters back to the GOP, the group says.

But while the economy remains a strong challenge for Republicans, Democrats haven't yet fully taken advantage. They have other problems: Democratic socialists are battling centrists over the party's economic agenda, and polling shows voters hold dim views of the party. In the Fox News poll, for example, 69% of voters disapproved of the job Democrats are doing in Congress.

The Trump administration says that the war with Iran and its impact on gas prices are driving negative views of the economy, but that the effect will be transitory.

"Oil prices -- along with overall inflation -- will plummet again when President Trump forces a successful resolution with Iran," said Kush Desai, a White House spokesman. "The Trump economic agenda has a proven track record of raising real wages, creating jobs, and securing key investments."

Economists and analysts have puzzled for several years over why an economy that looks relatively solid by traditional metrics, if not stellar, has produced such a sour public mood.

Inflation measures how much prices have risen over a year, but what irks many people is how much higher prices are than they were before the pandemic. Voters appear to rate the economy relative to the recent past, rather than its outright performance, according to University of Texas at Austin political scientist Christopher Wlezien.

High mortgage rates and home prices have put buying a home out of reach for many Americans. Nor has the boom in stock prices assuaged discontent. That might be because a growing number of Americans feel that gains in wealth are mostly accruing to those at the top, according to John Dick, chief executive of consumer analytics company CivicScience.

Winston, who advises congressional GOP leaders, said he believes that voter impressions can still change. "People are in constant contact with prices," he said. "So, if in October people start walking into grocery stores and gas stations and say, 'I can now handle the cost of living,' that is the decisive moment."

Moreover, polling shows only limited signs that the economic discontent is turning into votes for Democratic candidates. As a group, polls show that voters say they will back a Democrat for Congress over a Republican by about 6 points -- the same lead Democrats had at this point in 2018, when views of Trump's management of the economy were far more positive.

"People are maybe a little bit too optimistic about how easy it is going to be to take the House," said Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat who represents a largely rural Washington state district that Trump won three times. "Yes, Trump is very, very unpopular. That doesn't mean that Democrats are necessarily popular."

At the same time, voters can map many of their cost-of-living concerns to actions taken by the White House. Gasoline prices are high as a result of the war with Iran. Tariffs have also added to price pressures.

"The specific economic circumstances we're dealing with are not really necessarily an inheritance from a previous administration. They are due to very specific decisions that this administration has made," said Sides.