\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is the biggest issue for you in your life?\u201d \u201cCost of living.\u201d \u201cAt the grocery store, at the gas pump.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t afford my insurance.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s outrageous.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re not going to have a middle class.\u201d I\u2019m in Pennsylvania\u2019s 7th Congressional District. It\u2019s one of a handful in the entire country that could decide control of Congress in November. And I\u2019m talking to people here about their lives and what they want the candidates to be focused on. \u201cHi \u2014 I\u2019m a reporter. My name is Sabrina. Can I talk to you?\u201d \u201cOK, so this was $106.\u201d \u201cFor like four or five bags. Paying more and bringing out less bags, Sabrina. It\u2019s a real bite out of your income. What do you do? You got to eat, right?\u201d \u201cDoes any of this connect to politics for you?\u201d \u201cThe war in Iran and everything is what\u2019s jacking up the price of everything right now.\u201d \u201cAnd can I ask you who you voted for in 2024?\u201d \u201cI voted for President Trump.\u201d \u201cHow are you feeling about that? Are you feeling pretty good now or are you feeling \u2014\u201d \u201cWell, I have mixed emotions, Sabrina \u2014 yeah I don\u2019t like the war. I don\u2019t like bombings or killing civilians or anything like that. I wish we could stop that somehow. The other thing is, I like to see the prices go down because it\u2019s really killing you.\u201d This is one of only two congressional districts in the state that Republicans flipped in 2024. So this is a big test for the Democratic Party. Can it appeal to voters on cost of living and win them back? In Allentown, Karla Rodriguez worries about the survival of her family\u2019s chicken restaurant. \u201cWe\u2019ve never been this bad. Every week the prices are changing. The meat is going up. Ground beef used to be like $18 a tube and now we\u2019re paying $60. You have to find it how you can, and then some people are understanding. Those that are not will go somewhere else.\u201d \u201cIt sounds like a hard calculation for you guys.\u201d \u201cIt is, yeah, it is. We try to price things where it\u2019s like reasonable, where people can afford it, but where we\u2019re also not losing. But that\u2019s a very thin little gap. The electricity goes up, water goes up, everything goes up. So I mean, we\u2019re just lucky and blessed to still be here and functioning and staying afloat.\u201d \u201cYou guys \u2014 Democrat or Republican?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t even know.\u201d \u201cSee the color.\u201d \u201cWhat did you like about Trump?\u201d \u201cI was hoping so much for him to change and change America. Bring it back. He was saying, \u2018Oh, things are going to get better.\u2019 And this is \u2014 \u2018prices are going to go lower.\u2019 Yeah, and look what you go and do. He\u2019s really screwing the poor people, man. If there\u2019s more people like Trump, we\u2019re not going to have a middle class. I want to see president work in a warehouse, driving a forklift for 16 hours, 15, 14 hours, like I used to do. And first six months, he was backing up what he said. After that, I don\u2019t know what happened. He really took us for a ride there. Especially me. I hate getting taken.\u201d \u201cHopefully something does change. Because if it stays like this for a long time, I don\u2019t know. A lot of people are not going to survive, honestly.\u201d \u201cDoes it make you want to vote? \u201cDoes it make me want to vote? Yes \u2014 for the opposite of what we have now. Because this is \u2014 it\u2019s not working.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWhat is the biggest issue for you in your life?\u201d \u201cCost of living.\u201d \u201cAt the grocery store, at the gas pump.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t afford my insurance.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s outrageous.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re not going to have a middle class.\u201d I\u2019m in Pennsylvania\u2019s 7th Congressional District. It\u2019s one of a handful in the entire country that could decide control<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2609,581,24553,1259,5215],"class_list":{"0":"post-49557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-class","9":"tag-democrats","10":"tag-pennsylvanias","11":"tag-win","12":"tag-working"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}