When the American economy sours, voters react. Usually, this means punishing whichever party is in power in Washington in a generalized “throw the bums out” sort of way. The voters see that the people running the country have screwed things up, so they decide to give the other team a chance at making things better. However, in most such cases there is no easily-identifiable cause of the economy going south. The voters just feel a sort of free-floating malaise and they turn on the party in power to show their general disapproval. It is actually rare that there is an easily-identifiable event or policy choice that people can point to and say: “This is why the economy sucks right now.”
We are in one of those times now. There is a clear cause and effect, and it is so obvious and simple that virtually all voters have already made the basic connection. Donald Trump’s war of choice with Iran sent gasoline prices through the roof. It’s a pretty basic equation: “Trump’s war led to sky-high gas prices.” You can draw further inferences as well, although not everybody follows it through all the way: “Trump’s war led to sky-high gas prices and all-time record high diesel prices which led to food prices going up and prices for everything shipped by train or truck going up which led to inflation going up and everything costing more and more.”