Inflation, War, and Voters: What the Data Really Shows

0:00Um, are you stuck staring at your W2? Our tax refund worry is holding you back. You probably have FOMO. The fear of messing up. The FIX? Using turbo tax on into a credit karma, they find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve, or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right. We're filing today in the Credit Karma app. Affordability remains a top concern for Americans as rising gas prices threaten despite necessities like groceries even more. Survey show a key GOP demographic is feeling the pinch most acutely, which could spell trouble for Trump this fall. In this episode, we speak to a pollster and political analyst about the state of the economy and how it's affecting the mood of voters, both in the US and Europe. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley, and this is a weekend

1:01edition of Morning Wire. Fast-growing trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery, with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers. Think of it as your local nursery available anywhere, with a bigger selection than you'll find anywhere else. From fruit and privacy trees to flowering varieties, shrubs and house plants, every plant is grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. Click Order and Grow to create your dream yard with options that fit your climate, space and lifestyle. I just received my fiddly figs from fast-growing trees, and let me tell you, they're already making my house a home. I haven't decided what to name them just yet, but they are gorgeous. Their alive and thrive guarantee ensures your plants arrive happy and healthy, backed by ongoing support from trained plant experts to help you plan, choose and care for your new greenery. Right now, they have great deals on spring planting essentials, up to have off on select plants, and listeners to our show get 20% off their first purchase when using the Code Wire at checkout. That's an additional 20% off better plants and better growing, at fastgrowingtrees.com

2:02using the Code Wire at checkout. Fastgrowingtrees.com Code Wire. Now is the perfect time to plant, let's grow together, use wire to save today, offer as valid for a limited time, terms and conditions may apply. I'd like to tell you about our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom, ADF is a Christian Legal Ministry dedicated to advancing free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, parental rights, and God's design for marriage and family. They've scored huge legal victories, like helping to topple Roe v Wade, and securing a landmark free speech win at the Supreme Court, on behalf of Graphic Designer Laurie Smith. And they're fighting some of our culture's most pressing issues, from the protection of women's sports to stopping male order abortion drugs. ADF relies on the generous support of people like you to protect freedom in the courtroom and the culture. And now until March 31st, every dollar you give to ADF will be matched. That means $25 becomes $50, $50 becomes $100, only while they're matching funds last. Go to joinadf.com slash wire, or text wire to 83848 to have your gift to ADF matched.

3:03That's joinadf.com slash wire, or text wire to 83848 to double your impact for freedom. Joining us now is founder and CEO of Signal Pulling Brent Buchanan, Brent, thanks for coming on. So prices are surging right now because of gas, but there's of course the larger economy to look at as well. Now you've reported there are some positives. First, can you tell us the big picture, particularly with jobs? Well, let's go back to President Trump's state of the union where he talked about wage growth. That's a really important aspect of costs that nobody's talking about, which is that if you have more money to spend and costs go up a little bit, it doesn't impact you nearly as much. And one of the hardest things about the Joe Biden presidency was the fact that wages were depressed while costs were skyrocketing. So your ability to purchase was even made worse and harder than even slight increases to price right now. So that's the number one thing, is focusing on what are the two inputs of everybody's

4:04budget, and that is what money do I have coming in and what money is going out. And so while you have small spikes on gas price from the Iran conflict, you have actually have 64% of people who are saying that they're living comfortably or fine right now. And so it doesn't necessarily match with the narrative of the doom-scroller narrative mainstream media saying that everybody is struggling right now. There are definitely people struggling, but it doesn't necessarily fit with the day that we have in our polling, and also the day that you see on wage growth right now. Now when you say 64% of people report living comfortably, how does that number compare to say a few years ago, or just the baseline for the American population as long as we've been looking at numbers like that? That's a good question, and it's not one that we have asked historically. We were really trying to dig into an our March national survey. What is the truth behind the, when people say affordability and cost-eliving? God has blessed my family, but I still notice when things are getting more expensive, and

5:04we make different decisions as a family. We wanted to suss through what is the truth behind all of this, and that's why we asked the question in that way, are you living comfortably or are you doing okay and having to watch things, be careful, are you just getting by, are you struggling to make ends meet? And we only had 15% of Americans say that they're struggling to make ends meet out of those response options. Although the fact remains, people are very concerned about affordability. What are the main pain points that people are talking about when it comes to prices? Well, one of the largest things that we've seen, at least prior to the Iran conflict, come out is people are saying that it is the affordability of health insurance. That's one of the largest drivers of a concern that they have related to their own personal ability to afford their life. Then secondarily comes in usually a grocery prices, and then you start to see housing come in, and then usually after that it's gas. I would imagine that with the large increase in gas prices in the last three weeks,

6:04that matrix has shifted itself so. But I don't think that you're going to see it overtake groceries and healthcare cost as likely still the two largest impacts of people's ability to afford life. You look at American opinions, but you also look at some polling in Europe. We've seen some reporting that affordability issues are affecting Europe and Canada as well. What are some of the interesting trends that you've been seeing across the pond? Well, they have a little bit different cost structure than we do because they pay a lot more

7:06in taxes, and so many of the things that we in America are used to paying for like health insurance are covered, but they pay higher taxes in that. They've not necessarily seen the same rise and grocery costs at the same rate that we've seen here in the US. I actually just had some friends at my house last night from the Middle East, and she was telling me that she was surprised at how expensive groceries are here comparatively every time she comes back to the States. Now, that being said, they get hit by energy cost a lot more, and that goes all the way back to the Ukraine war. And so, this is probably more acute on Europeans, a change in the cost of gas and liquid natural gas and other forms of energy, even more so than it is in the US, where we produce a massive amount of energy. And I think this is going to be an opportunity for American energy companies to shine and really build up and come out of this thing stronger, even with this minor blip in between. Now, I know you also look at political opinions and sentiment. How is the war affecting people's opinion of the Trump administration? It's pretty hard to move somebody's opinion

8:10of the Trump administration. He is one of the hardest figures in America, and in the sense of, you have a strong opinion, a very hard opinion, one way or the other on Donald Trump. I think it's more so the sorting of who is interested or not interested in politics. So, one thing that I spent last weekend doing was looking at our presidential exit poll by demographic group and comparing that to our most recent March national survey and trying to understand where have Republicans slipped in the centrum from coming out, winning the national popular vote to being down a few points in the congressional generic ballot right now. And it is exclusively voters under the age of 55. It is almost exclusively voters making under $75,000 a year, and it is heavily weighted to non-college educated voters. Now, outside of the age aspect of those three groups, you would normally say, okay, I'm describing Republicans, because Republican voters base are more likely to be non-college educated,

9:11more likely to be lower down the income scale, which is different from 30 years ago. When Republicans were the party of the country club. And so, it definitely is not everything is bright and crazy right now for Republicans. They need to be acutely aware of how they're messaging this war and conflict, how they are talking about affordability, the things specifically within affordability that they're talking about. Really need to be laser focused on younger, lower income, less educated Americans, because that's who's going to end up deciding the selection if they come back to Republicans, Republicans win. If they don't, it will be a failure of messaging, of casting the vision for what giving them another two years is going to look like. Now, before you go, we've seen some interesting political trends in Europe just over the past month. There are indications that the immigration crisis is moving the needle in several countries, the UK, Germany, and most recently France. What happened in France this past week? Over the weekend in France, right wing parties picked up a significant number of local elections,

10:13mayorship, city council control, which was not expected, including in the city of Nice, which is not a right wing bastion. So, if they're winning there, they're going to win elsewhere in the country. The right is surging. And they're surging on the issue of immigration, which is exactly what surged the right wing party in America in the 24 election. Now, does Nice have disproportionately more migrants just because of where it is geographically? Yeah, it's on the it's on the southern coast, and that's where they're dropping off on the beaches there. So, a political realignment, very much like what we saw along the Rio Grand Valley. But it's more like putting Miami on the Rio Grand Valley. If the Rio Grand Valley is not well to do, Nice is well to do. Yeah, that's an interesting distinction. And of course, we did see a similar shift in Miami in 2024. Brent, thank you so much for coming on, and hopefully we'll have you back soon. Hey, my pleasure. Good to see you all. That was Brent Buchanan, founder and CEO of Signal Pulling, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports.

11:19And nothing brings us together quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBC Universal's iconic storytelling to the innovative technology across Expinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to America, sharing every moment with millions. When Team USA steps onto the world stage, we're not just watching. We're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast, proud partner of Team USA.