The Democrats won big. Can they reduce your grocery bill? : NPR

A supporter holds a sign during a campaign rally for Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Annie Andrews in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, November 1. Andrews defeated his Republican opponent, Sen. Darline Graham.

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It is a characteristic of campaign announcements and stump speeches for months: food prices are out of control.

Affordability concerns, including the high cost of food, were at the top of voters’ minds heading into the midterm elections, as tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and the war in Iran continued to drive up prices. That economic strain helped Democrats take control of both houses of Congress on Tuesday.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the new majority would make tackling high prices a priority in January. “This was a huge victory for the American people and a strong rebuke of MAGA extremism, which has made life more expensive for ordinary Americans despite their promises to lower the cost of living from day one,” he said. told NPR Friday.

The question is how Democrats will accomplish this while President Trump is still in the Oval Office and ready to use his veto. Senate Democrats I won’t have It’s a filibuster-proof majority, and Trump may not want to reverse his tariffs or backtrack on the war in Iran, two of the main causes of rising food prices.

Lael Brainard, who leads a public policy group called The Kitchen Table Project, said Americans nonetheless expect relief from Washington — and quickly.

“They feel like they’re being crushed by high prices that don’t need to be so high,” she said.

What Democrats plan to do to lower food prices

Despite political hurdles, Democrats said they intend to press ahead with plans to cut grocery bills, including by go back Trump’s tariffs. These tariffs have not only increased the cost of certain foods and beverages imported into the United States, but have also created other pressures on the food industry by making it more expensive to import products such as machine parts and packaging.

The war in Iran has led to soaring energy prices, making it more expensive to transport just about everything. Fertilizer costs also grew when the closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted a significant portion of the global fertilizer trade.

But getting Trump to reverse the tariffs or the war in Iran – or his crackdown on immigration, which leads to labor shortages on American farms – could prove tricky for Democrats.

“I think the president would certainly want to find ways to reduce the cost of groceries. Democrats (also) see that in their interest,” said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Lehigh University. “The mechanisms, the tools, the levers that would be most readily available to achieve this – there is some distance between the president and the Democrats who will take control of both the House and the Senate.”