Soaring grocery prices have been at the forefront of the 2024 presidential campaign. Surveys show that inflation is a top concern for Latino voters heading into the election. But the issue isn’t necessarily inflation as economists measure it: a rate of increase over a set period of time. Instead, it’s a deeper and broader feeling that life overall has gotten really expensive.
In this episode of Latino USA, we decided to take the pulse of one of the country’s least affordable cities with our very own Taco Index. Host Maria Hinojosa interviewed local taqueros and other Latinos about the rising costs of tacos and many everyday essentials, and how these changes are shaping their perspectives on the upcoming presidential election.
One of the locals Maria spoke with is Yvette Corina, a single mother from San Diego struggling to make ends meet. Although Yvette supported President Biden in the 2020 election, she now plans to vote for Donald Trump, and she says inflation is a major factor.
Pocketbook voting is one of most well-worn clichés in politics, but UC San Diego political scientist Marisa Abrajano says there’s a long track record of voters blaming the party in power for conditions that aren’t always under a president’s control.
“Despite the economic numbers and indicators that we have, the narrative [of the Biden administration] has so strongly been one sided about how bad the economy is and inflation,” says Abrajano. “When we’ve seen this happen before, it’s the incumbent president that suffers.”
We explore all that and more in this episode of Latino USA.
Featured image by @saludtacos via Instagram.
This episode was produced by Marina Peña and edited by Rowan Moore Gerety. Fact-checking by Elizabeth Loewenthal Torres. It was mixed by Julia Caruso with engineering support from J.J. Querubin.
