If they want to win the midterms next year, Democrats should really return in a big way to that old chestnut from the Bill Clinton era: "It's the economy, stupid." Because that is where both Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans are the weakest, and the economy is almost always either at or very near the top of the list of issues voters care the most about.

Donald Trump got elected on two big issues: immigration (deporting everyone in sight) and the economy. The public has soured on his handling of immigration, after seeing Trump's thuggish tactics, but on the subjects of the economy and inflation Trump scores his worst polling of any issue out there. Which makes it ripe for Democrats to bring up -- which they should, continually and unceasingly and relentlessly.

The main message is a simple one: "Donald Trump promised to bring down prices, but he lied. He hasn't done anything to bring down prices, and the things he has done are all driving them up even faster." There are all sorts of individual issues you can fit into this overall strategy, in fact. The cost of electricity is one good example.

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to cut everyone's gasoline and electricity prices in half within his first year in office. That year is more than half over now. And electricity bills keep going up. Sometimes he hedged it a bit and gave himself a longer timeline, but the message was pretty clear. Here is Trump in August of 2024: "Under my administration, we will be slashing energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months."

So far, gas prices have not budged. The national average price for gasoline was around $3.10 when Trump took office, and it is now at $3.14. Not once in that time period has it dipped below three bucks a gallon. So Trump has done essentially nothing on this front.

Electricity prices, however, keep rising. The inflation report released this week showed that electricity prices were up 5.5 percent from a year ago -- which is higher than the overall inflation rate.

We are at the dawn of a new era, with the rise of artificial intelligence. The computing centers that are necessary for this to happen consume an enormous amount of energy. What this means to the big picture for the country is lots of increased demand. But the supply of electricity is not growing at a pace to match it, and Trump is making things worse.

Donald Trump has a deep-seated hatred for both wind and solar electricity. Part of this was losing a lawsuit in Scotland over a wind farm just offshore from one of his golf courses, and part of it is undoubtedly his hatred for all things "green." He also has a fundamental misunderstanding of how this power is generated, how the electrical grid functions, and how deadly wind turbines are to birds and whales. But whatever his true motivation, Trump is dead-set on destroying all the incentives Joe Biden managed to get passed for these two energy sources during his time in office.

This means cancelling or turning down new projects to provide wind and solar energy. Which means the electricity supply side won't be growing as fast as it needs to (with all the new A.I. demand). And not enough supply with increased demand always leads to higher prices.

Here is one great example of the type of ad Democrats should be running right about now, which was created by a progressive group to attack a Republican House member in southwestern Wisconsin:

They promised to bring down prices. But instead, our congressman, Derrick Van Orden, just voted to make our monthly bills go up.

Van Orden's plan takes Medicaid away from millions of Americans -- which means they'll pay thousands out-of-pocket for care.

And it removes clean energy from the electric grid, creating a massive rate hike on electricity.

And it's all just to cut taxes -- yet again -- for the super rich.

Everything costs too much already. And Congressman Van Orden just voted to make it even worse.

As you can see, it's pretty easy to make this case. And Trump helps make it easy, by refusing to admit any reality that does not fit in with his fantasy view of what a success he's been at everything. Today a rather alarming number was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks wholesale prices (the prices producers pay for goods). It leapt upward by a whopping 0.9 percent in a single month, showing 3.3 percent annual inflation for wholesalers. This was much steeper a rise than economists had been expecting.

Here was Trump's reaction to the bad news:

President Donald Trump claimed on Thursday that his administration has "ended Biden's inflation nightmare," even as recently released inflation figures paint a different picture.

Touting his administration's economic accomplishments at a White House event to mark the anniversary of the Social Security Act, Trump said his administration is "fighting the menace of inflation to make life more affordable for American seniors."

"We had the worst inflation in the history of our country, and now our inflation is down to a perfect number, a beautiful number, hardly any at all," the president continued.

At least he didn't fire the acting head of the B.L.S., which is what he did the last time bad economic numbers were released. But he's still sticking his head in the sand and insisting that his fantasy is correct while reality is not. Which leaves him even more vulnerable to political attacks on the issue. If economic indicators continue to get worse, Democrats should paint Trump as being "out of touch" on the issue, contrasting his happy, rosy-tinted talk with the realities at the checkout stand or when paying the monthly bills.

As I said this is a pretty easy case to make. Trump has not only done absolutely nothing to get prices down -- which was one of the two major issues he used to get elected -- but in fact the trade war he pointlessly launched with the rest of the world is actively making things worse. And the more he insists that up is down and his fantasy is correct, the worse it will get for him politically.

Because the American public doesn't care so much about the precise numbers of the economic indicators, instead they rely more on a gut feel for the entire economy. "Am I or any of my friends or relatives out of work, but nobody's hiring?" they ask themselves. "When I go to the grocery store, does buying the same amount of food cost more?" And when they sour on their own experiences, it takes more than economic indicators to change their mind.

"The economy" is a nebulous thing, and voters care a whole lot more on how they feel about it. If their outlook is gloomy then it takes a whole lot of good economic news to get them to think optimistically again. And once again, the economy (and inflation) is always either at the top or at the least in the top three issues that voters say they care about during campaign season.

Democrats have to make this case, because if they are successful at doing so it will build a huge advantage for them in next year's midterm elections. Feelings about the economy run deep. They don't shift on a dime. And the case is pretty easy to make: "Trump said he'd lower prices. He lied to you. He's making prices go up even faster."

James Carville was right: It's still the economy, stupid.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant