Rising prices could spell doom for the razor-thin GOP majority in the House of Representatives this November, as voters with short memories could be set to turn control back to Democrats just two years after the disastrous Joe Biden presidency.
Billionaire Republican megadonor Ken Griffin shared his opinion that it’s “almost a certainty” that the Democrats will take back the House, although he was more optimistic that the GOP will be able to retain the Senate.
The Citadel CEO made his political prediction during a conversation with CNBC anchor Sara Eisen on Tuesday’s edition of “The Exchange,” explaining that Americans have “had it” with inflation, a persistent scourge that has eaten into paychecks for the last seven years and is once again raging as a result of skyrocketing gas prices due to the war in Iran.
(Video Credit: CNBC)
“Now Trump is president, people want to see that return to having more purchasing power at the cash register,” Griffin said. “You know, if you look at the price of eggs, you look at the price of fast food, you look at the price of housing, you look at the price of almost anything in life, it’s materially higher than it was just seven years ago.“
“And so when gasoline prices go higher, I think it’s really triggering to the American people that the inflation genie is back out of the bottle again,” he continued. “And I think Trump has to deal with the reality that the American people have just had it when it comes to inflation.”
“And unfortunately, I think he is being disproportionately blamed for the diminution of purchasing power, the story of which was really written during the pandemic days of the Biden administration,” Griffin said, pinpointing the root of the inflation problem that has come back with a vengeance.
“Do you see the democrats taking Congress?” Eisen then asked.
“It’s almost a certainty the Democrats will take the House,” Griffin responded. “That’s the nature of almost every midterm election cycle, the House seats swing in favor of the opposing party.”
“The Senate will be the big battleground in this midterm. The republicans will almost certainly keep the Senate, but that will be the political battleground in this election cycle,” he said.
Not good news for the Republicans, who are already faced with trying to buck history with the midterms traditionally being a referendum on the president and party in power, which, fairly or not, gets the blame for the woes of the nation, with voters taking out their frustrations at the ballot box.
“In four of the last five midterm elections, control of the House has shifted away from the incumbent president’s party. The only time that did not occur was in 2014, when Republicans added to their majority in the lower chamber during former President Obama’s second term,” according to The Hill.
The GOP has more favorable odds in the upper chamber, where it currently enjoys a 53-47 advantage, and the Democrats would have to flip four of the 22 Republican seats up for election and then still overcome Vice President JD Vance being the tiebreaking vote if they somehow manage to eke out a 50-50 split.
Griffin voted for Trump, although he has been critical of the administration on some key issues, including tariffs and showing what he called “favoritism” in dealings with Corporate America.
