Democrats are feeling America’s pain. Whether they can fix it is another question

State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat from Texas and US Senate candidate, speaks during an event in Dallas, Texas, on September 10. Mark Felix/Bloomberg/Getty Images Donald Trump Inflation Economy House leadership See all topics Facebook Tweet Email Link Threads Link Copied! Follow Democrats may win the midterm election simply by exposing an unpopular president’s mirage of an economic “golden age.”

But that won’t bring the price of groceries and gasoline down.

On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates have effectively voiced the pain of families in the grip of the affordability crisis. They’re less good at nailing down specifics on how they plan to make life cheaper.

And with the House looking increasingly likely to go blue and with Republicans sweating on the Senate, the question of whether Democrats could take tangible, fast action to ease Americans’ financial burden deserves more scrutiny.

There’s some truth to President Donald Trump’s complaint that Democrats just turned the buzzword of “affordability” against him — especially since the Biden presidency saw inflation spike to its highest levels since the 1980s before falling back. “It’s fake,” Trump said at the GOP midterm convention. “They are so fake, because it was them that caused the affordability, to use their word, crisis.”

Those are the breaks for an incumbent president — particularly one who called out the high price of groceries when he was running in 2024 and then failed to bring them down. Trump has been his own worst enemy, drowning out his own affordability plays — such as limiting taxes on tips and taking action to lower the prices of some prescription drugs — by choosing to wage Iran and tariff wars that sent costs soaring.

President Donald Trump casts a shadow while leaving a campaign rally in Durant, Oklahoma on October 1. Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images Voters are connecting the dots — and it’s bad news for Republicans

But if Democrats were to win a share of Washington power on November 3, they’d also assume the burden of action — though their ability to reshape the economy would be constrained, in part by a president willing to wield his veto.

That means a new Democratic Congress would have a greater capacity to thwart the most aggressive wielder of presidential power in modern history than to enact its own solutions.

This could be a trap. Recent elections in the US and elsewhere in the democratic world show that voters quickly lose patience with parties that are elected to forge change but fail to deliver it.

A Democratic honeymoon could therefore quickly fade.

Roy Cooper, former governor of North Carolina and Democratic US Senate candidate for North Carolina, during a “Make Things Cost Less” campaign kickoff event at Clouds Brewing on March 4, 2026 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Al Drago/Getty Images/File WWDD: What would Democrats do? As the midterms race into the final three weeks, Democrats contemplating the possibility of a restoration in Congress face three questions:

In a midterm showdown dominated by Trump’s cacophony and controversy, there’s been less attention on detailed Democratic proposals for a potential House or Senate majority in the 120th Congress.

It’s not that there are no plans — there are scores of them. Candidates, interest groups and think tanks are churning out ways to bring down the cost of housing, raise wages, restore benefits, overhaul healthcare, protect workers from AI, introduce universal child care, launch a house-building boom, and slash the cost of groceries and gasoline.

Roy Cooper, the Democratic Senate nominee in North Carolina, touts his “Make Stuff Cost Less” plan. Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, who will appear at a CNN & Jubilee Town Hall on Wednesday, has a “New American Dream” agenda. Sen. Ruben Gallego has unveiled an expansive plan that includes a New Deal-style public service jobs program. Sen. Chuck Schumer could dust off a deeply detailed policy blueprint he futilely rolled out in a GOP Senate in January if Democrats win back the majority.

But ideas won’t count for much without an actionable roadmap in what will be a fractured Washington if voters decide to deliver a rebuke to Trump next month.

The country already intuits that turning to the Democrats won’t alone end an affordability crisis years in the making. In a CNN/SSRS poll in September, Democrats had a 7-point lead as the party Americans saw as closest to their views on the economy. But only 35% thought the party would have a mainly positive effect on the cost of living and a meager 27% said the same regarding their personal financial situation.

Democratic nominee for US Senate Abdul El-Sayed, left, looks over to Republican nominee Senate Mike Rogers during a televised debate at WOOD-TV, on October 8, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Paul Sancya/Pool/AP Brainstorming does not equal actionable plans Democrats would need to move fast. There’s two things they think they could do.

“If we don’t stop this war, if we don’t stop it now, we are going to continue to watch as the Iranian regime chokeholds the Strait of Hormuz, making our energy prices higher,” Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed said at a debate this month. “And you are going to pay for it both at the gas tank and at the grocery store.”

And Cooper told voters in July that “we need to roll back these chaotic tariffs, and Congress needs to take back its constitutional authority on that — because that’s ending up costing everyday people and small businesses.”

In theory, a new Congress could end the war and overturn Trump’s tariffs. But it would be almost impossibly difficult.

Democrats could try to block new supplemental spending for military operations in Iran and pass laws to restrict how broader military funds are spent. But it would be a high-risk move since Trump could accuse them of deserting American troops in a war zone and could use his veto to block legislation. The failure of a Democratic House to stop the Iraq war after the party’s 2006 midterm victory is a daunting omen. And a war powers showdown with Trump over the dubious legality of the war seems as likely to produce a constitutional morass as to end the conflict.

Congress could overturn the remnants of Trump’s tariffs that survived the Supreme Court’s rescinding of duties built on emergency powers. But a veto-proof two-thirds majority against the president might be a stretch in the Senate even if Democrats had overall control.

If Democrats can’t immediately change the nation’s course, their political messaging will be even more critical. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters in June that the first bill if the party wins the majority, HR.1, would be on affordability. “It will be hyper-focused on driving down the high cost of living and of course fixing our broken health care system as a part of that,” he said.

US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 30. Kylie Cooper/Reuters His challenge would be in unifying the Democratic caucus behind proposed legislation given the ideological chasms between democratic socialists, progressives and moderates that were highlighted during this year’s primaries. Jeffries must hope for a larger majority than the minuscule one that has plagued GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson.

But even if Democrats gain a healthy majority in the House, a Senate victory is unlikely to deliver anything but a narrowly divided chamber. Republicans will almost certainly still enjoy the capacity to block legislation if Democrats can’t amass 60 votes. Democratic priorities could be packaged into the kind of filibuster-proof reconciliation bills often used by the GOP. But presidents retain the veto — a power used, for example, by President Barack Obama to send back a GOP reconciliation bill in January 2016 that aimed to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

It’s a quaint thought, but the US system of divided federal power does envisage compromise. Maybe Democrats could find an accommodation with Trump on housing affordability, prescription drug prices, child tax credits or infrastructure — issues that have interested the president in the past.

But a promised Democratic onslaught of investigation targeting the Trump White House would surely precipitate a political cold war, making cooperation elusive.

The most ambitious Democratic priorities — such as restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies — might only emerge from a show of strength in budget negotiations or potential government shutdowns. Such clashes are gambles for both parties.

Elections perpetually conjure hope, promises and expectation. Divided government, however, usually results in bitter inertia.

So an inevitable sequel may already be looming: yet another election, in 2028, on the same issue of affordability, as voters wait and wait for answers.