Why Inflation Didn’t Have A Bigger Effect On The Midterm Elections

The results of the midterm election have left an unsolved mystery surrounding inflation. Both exit polling and polls taken before the election showed inflation as the number-one issue for voters. Under conventional wisdom, this should have translated into much bigger victories and larger margins in Congress for the party out of power — Republicans.

And yet, inflation didn’t seem to have much of an impact as Republicans underperformed relative to the expectations of those on both the right and the left. How do we square the circle of inflation being the primary issue on so many voters’ minds and yet not changing very many minds? The fact that the pain from inflation is so unequally distributed across the electorate might be the answer.