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Trump Is Turning to Venezuela but Voters Are Focused on the Economy
The president’s move against Venezuela comes as high prices and economic unease continue to shape the midterm landscape.
Dillon Mockli voted for President Trump in 2024 in hopes of ending wars, reining in government spending and bringing down inflation. Upon hearing the president say the U.S. would run Venezuela after American forces captured President Nicolás Maduro, the 38-year-old sarcastically said: “Charming. Just what I voted for.”
Instead of spending more money overseas, Mockli said he would prefer to see Trump focused on prices in the U.S. He said the pandemic lockdowns and subsequent inflation surge wreaked havoc on his finances.
“I make the most money I ever made in my life, and I feel the brokest I’ve ever been,” said Mockli, who owns a food-truck business in rural Idaho and routinely sees customers’ credit cards declined. He characterized Trump’s first year in office as “a gigantic disappointment to a monumental degree.” He expects to either vote Libertarian or to abstain from voting in the midterm elections.
Trump’s Venezuela incursion has injected a volatile foreign conflict into a political environment defined by voter anxiety over high prices and a softening job market. Whether Trump can juggle a high-stakes intervention abroad while persuading voters that he is making progress on the economy is poised to determine the political outcome in November, according to interviews with over a dozen strategists, pollsters and voters.
“If things go poorly, this will be huge. If things go well and we’re not there that long, it’s a plus,” said Wes Anderson, a Republican pollster and partner at OnMessage, of the Venezuela incursion. “But I cannot imagine that it overcomes the principal driver of this election, which is how average Americans feel about the economy.”
The White House has said the removal of Maduro is an example of decisive leadership abroad. Before the military operation, polls had consistently shown that a majority of Americans were opposed to military action in Venezuela and that inflation and affordability rank at the top of voters’ concerns, surpassing foreign policy.
Trump vowed on the campaign trail to bring down consumer prices and strengthen American workers’ job prospects by stopping illegal immigration and spurring domestic manufacturing by imposing tariffs on imported goods.
Tariffs have contributed to persistent inflation as businesses have been passing along some of the costs to customers, while unemployment climbed to a four-year high in November. Economic growth has proved resilient, but consumer sentiment remains abysmal.
Meanwhile, a deepening economic divide separates Americans who own homes and stocks from middle-class households who are priced out of the housing market and may have missed last year’s 16% gain in the S&P 500. Most voters say they disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy.
Republicans have rallied behind Trump and echoed the administration’s rationale that the Venezuela operation was limited in scope and would stop the flow of illicit drugs through the southern border. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said the administration wasn’t leading the U.S. toward a new conflict, and emphasized there were no American forces on the ground in Venezuela.
“We are at war against drug-trafficking organizations, not a war against Venezuela,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Marc Short, who served in the first Trump administration, said he believed the raid in Venezuela was successful because it resulted in Maduro being deposed. But he said Trump was reneging on the economic promises that got Americans to send him back to the White House.
“He was primarily elected because of two issues: securing the border and bringing down costs,” Short said. “On the first issue, he has a lot of achievements. On controlling costs, his trade agenda is working against him.”
Some Republicans said the administration is betting the intervention will unlock cheaper oil for the U.S. economy, potentially bringing down prices at the gas pump. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world but has seen its yearly output fall more than 60% since 2014.
“I do think there’s a real hope that this will have a net positive impact on economic growth and the cost of living for American voters that they can sell,” said Gregg Nunziata, a longtime Republican aide who is now the executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law.
But Nunziata, who served as Rubio’s general counsel and a domestic policy adviser from 2013 to 2016, said the administration has so far struggled to make “a coherent and sustained case before the American people for what they purported to do” in Venezuela.
Democrats, who have framed their campaign message around affordability, condemned Trump for striking Venezuela without congressional approval and accused the administration of losing focus on Americans’ priorities.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), an Iraq war veteran who is seen by some Democrats as a potential 2028 presidential contender, said in an interview: “The president is losing focus and doing what he said he wasn’t going to, which is get us involved in more wars, and not doing what he said he was going to do, which is bring down the cost of living.”
Democrats face their own obstacles this year amid record-low approval ratings from voters. But the party’s focus on affordability and voter frustration with Trump’s handling of the economy helped propel Democrats to victory in a handful of closely watched elections this past November.
Some Republicans, including former Trump administration officials, privately cautioned that, beyond distracting from economic issues, any prolonged involvement in Venezuela could become a political liability for Trump when the party is already on the defensive.
John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster, said all of his focus groups in battleground states over the past few months have turned up the same themes: that the cost of groceries, housing and health insurance are too high. He said Democrats shouldn’t get too consumed by the legality of Trump’s actions in Venezuela, and instead focus on voters wondering: “Why is this a priority and not my economic well-being?”
In interviews, more than a dozen voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2024 expressed a range of views on the operation to remove Maduro. Some said they could see how regime change in the South American nation might advance domestic goals such as stymying the drug trade, boosting oil production or reversing the influx of migrants fleeing Venezuela.
Alan Hornbecker, a former middle-school teacher in northern Virginia, said past attempts at regime change haven’t gone smoothly for the U.S. and that a good friend of his died while serving as a Navy SEAL in Iraq. But he supports the goal of stopping illegal drugs and continues to approve of Trump, who he believes will improve the economy over the long run.
“It’s definitely fraught with potential obstacles that could blow up in their face,” Hornbecker, 54, said of Venezuela. “But I don’t know. I’m gonna trust them on this one.”
Andrea Janssen, a 46-year-old contractor in Johnson County, Kan., said she doesn’t believe the administration’s rationale for intervention to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S.
“He’s full of crap. He’s in it for the oil,” said Janssen, who recalled that Trump pardoned former Honduran President and convicted cocaine trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández.
Janssen said she is a registered independent who voted for Trump in 2024, and is 50-50 in her approval of him. She said she was driving home from her lake house when she heard the president say on a broadcast that the U.S. would run Venezuela, a comment Rubio later clarified as “running policy.”
“It honestly made my stomach sink,” Janssen said.
She has seen a sharp drop-off in inquiries for projects such as kitchen remodels in recent months and thinks the economy is headed for a recession. Subcontractors including tilers, cabinet installers and painters are hitting her up for work. Trump, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be doing much about it, she said. “I think he’s a lot of talk and no action,” Janssen said.
Write to Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com and Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com
