According to the data, the US economy is strong. Swing state voters disagree

Bill DeJong, owner of Alger Hardware and Rental just outside Grand Rapids in Michigan's Kent County, is “not 100 percent sure” whether he should vote for Donald Trump again in November's presidential election.

DeJong is not a fan of Trump's personality or his plan to deport immigrants. But in the two decades he's been running the store, the 62-year-old has never seen prices rise as much as they have in recent years. He blames President Joe Biden's stimulus spending.

“Before Corona, if I had ordered 10 items a week for which I had to increase the price, that was a lot. “During Corona there were three or four pages with 50 articles each,” he said.

“It’s not going up as fast anymore, but I don’t think it’s going down.”

With just weeks left in the US presidential campaign, undecided voters like DeJong in industrialized swing states like Michigan are in the sights of Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris as they argue over the economy – the electorate's defining issue.

“If you turn on your TV in this condition, you can’t avoid it,” said Edward Montgomery, president of Western Michigan University. “This is definitely an in-play state, and this choice shows you how intense it is in the game.”

That's especially true in Kent County, which voted for Trump in 2016 but for Biden in 2020, helping him win Michigan by about 150,000 votes, or just under 3 percentage points.

The latest polls out of Michigan put Harris ahead of Trump by 1.6 points, a measure of her struggles in the so-called blue wall states that helped put Biden in the White House. It also may reflect anger in Michigan's large Arab-American community over Biden's – and now Harris' – support for Israel in Gaza.

The Harris campaign hopes that against a backdrop of favorable U.S. economic data – strong job growth, falling inflation and falling interest rates – and proposals to combat price gouging, it will strengthen its narrow lead in the state.

But inflation has left its mark and Michigan voters are divided.

Mary Palmer, a 63-year-old retiree from Boyne City, Michigan, said she was “optimistic” about the U.S. outlook and would cast her vote for Harris.

Others are angry – especially about the prices.

“It’s outrageous,” Ryan McVicker, a welder at manufacturer Bradford White in Middleville, said of his grocery and utility bills. “Republicans are probably better with money,” he added, justifying his support for Trump.

The Biden-Harris administration denies this while touting its cost-cutting efforts and its new industrial strategy: extensive subsidies intended to revive production in industrial centers like Michigan and promising to create long-term jobs. But many Michigan residents are currently struggling with a perceived cost of living crisis.

“The (Biden) administration’s policies have done more harm to the people we serve in terms of the number of people coming in,” said Ken Estelle, president of Feeding America, a food bank in West Michigan.

Visits to his food pantries in the state have increased more than 20 percent in the past 12 months, he said, after a nearly 30 percent increase the year before.

“It's hard to get past the last three years of really depressing prices,” Estelle said.

Trump capitalized on these feelings of economic discontent during the election campaign. “Our country is in trouble. It’s chaos,” he said at a rally just outside Walker in western Michigan in late September.

A recent poll by the Detroit Regional Chamber found that 47 percent of registered voters thought the state's economy was on the “wrong path,” compared to 43 percent who took a more optimistic view. A New York Times-Siena poll of likely voters in Michigan found that 55 percent trusted Trump on the economy versus 42 percent trusted Harris.

The macroeconomic data tells a more positive story about the US under Biden-Harris.

Despite more than a year of high interest rates, the economy has grown strongly. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates it will grow about 3 percent in the third quarter, making it one of the world's fastest developing economies.

The U.S. job market remained strong even as inflation fell from its 2022 peak. In September, the unemployment rate fell again to 4.1 percent – higher than the previous year, but still historically low.

Still, there are some warning signs for the economy.

The number of Americans seeking a second job is increasing. The number of people who are unemployed for 15 weeks or longer is just as high. Credit card defaults are rising as people burn through government-issued cash during the pandemic.

“People don’t feel as safe now,” said Paul Isely, an economics professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. “Even though many other people are doing better in their lives, they know that they are consuming beyond their means, whereas previously this was hidden by the fact that they had excess savings.”

Several Michigan businesses said they felt the pinch this year.

“We were firing on all cylinders, and then in January it was like someone flipped a switch,” said Nelson Sanchez, general manager of RoMan Manufacturing in Grand Rapids. It forced him to reduce his workforce.

He blamed the downturn on a decline in consumer demand and reduced business from the auto industry.

Sanchez said orders are now starting to come back in, making him “optimistic” about 2025, when his company may start hiring again.

Zachary Verhulst, who runs Pure Architects in Grand Rapids, said high interest rates forced people to put planned projects on hold last year.

“People were panicking and trying to figure out what the hell was going to happen,” the 37-year-old said.

Verhulst said he has started taking calls from clients ready to consider a first move since the Fed signaled its intention to cut interest rates earlier this year.

Signs of a turnaround have given optimism to Michael Hyacinthe, a veteran who opened Has Heart Coffee Shop in downtown Grand Rapids last year. Customers were even willing to give coffee to military personnel when they paid for their orders at his store.

“I see the positive momentum that is developing,” he said. He will vote for Harris.

The challenge for Harris will be tapping into that optimism in Michigan.

Montgomery, a lifelong Democrat and previously the Labor Department's chief economist, said that could prove challenging.

“Here's the problem: Inflation is the rate of growth and (it) has slowed, but the public's focus is on the absolute price,” said the president of Western Michigan University. “It takes a lot for the price level to fall. That would be recession and deflation, so it’s not entirely clear if that’s what you really want.”

For residents of the state's most populous area — Detroit, Warren and Dearborn — daily costs are now much higher and continuing to rise. Inflation rose to nearly 10 percent in 2022 and was still above 3 percent in August, according to federal data.

As a result, housing-related spending has increased by 36 percent since Biden took office. Gasoline is more expensive than it was under Trump. Food prices have risen 25 percent in the last four years.

Just last year, wages in the United States rose faster than the prices of goods and services.

Trump says his solution is to cut energy costs and regulations, although economists warn his plans for sweeping tariffs and tax cuts could drive up inflation.

Harris' plan focuses on providing benefits and support for small businesses, as well as higher taxes on the wealthy and large corporations.

Many voters are unconvinced of both – and skeptical that a divided Washington will still deliver help.

“Is this really the best thing both sides can do?” said hardware store owner DeJong.

Additional reporting by Sam Learner and data visualization by Oliver Roeder