Ashley Lopez

Even though the stock market has been pretty consistently pretty strong, people's feelings about the economy and sort of the longer term picture of the economy isn't looking as good.

And if Trump is doubling down on his key economic policies as things continue to get, you know, potentially kind of worse as we get into the midterms, that's a huge liability for him and the party.

There are groups that, for example, have been trying to shore up support in the Latino communities and parts of Texas.

And the biggest obstacle they have found in talking with those voters, they told me, is actually tariffs.

You mean Republicans?

Republicans trying to shore up support that they won among Latino voters in those areas are like, yeah, this is the thing that comes up that people blame all the time.

Now, if the economy was getting worse, like there's an alternate political reality here where if the economy was getting worse, even if it's slightly worse, he could say, look, I tried a thing.

And, you know, my hands were tied.

But now he continues to own whatever happens to the economy.

And, you know, I'm sure he and his White House, as well as the Republican Party, now needs to cross all their fingers and hope that things get better so that they can say, well, you know, we have some of Trump's economic plans to thank for that.

Yeah, I was about to say the place where the data is not mixed is when you talk to voters.

Like

Pretty consistently, voters, including people who voted for Trump during the last election, say they feel very pessimistic about the economy.

And it is not just about their current situation, which they're not happy about.

They don't feel like things are going to get better anytime soon.

And that is not good.

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Democrats can put a ballot measure before voters that would pave the way for the party to draw as many as four more seats that would favor them this year.

In an interview with CNN, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the party will fight hard to make sure that measure passes.

GOP leaders in Texas, North Carolina and Missouri redrew their congressional maps at President Trump's urging last year.

The special election in Virginia will be held in April.