Roughly 65 percent of Americans say high prices are the result of the president’s policies, according to a new survey released a month before the midterms.

The poll comes from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It surveyed 2,140 potential voters nationwide between September 24 and 28, with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

The numbers on the cost of living are the worst in it. Seventeen percent approve of the president’s handling of higher prices.

Twenty-six percent approve of his handling of the economy overall. Sixty-nine percent say his handling of prices has been worse than they expected, and that figure includes 52 percent of Republicans.

More than half of adults say the country, the national economy and their local economy are all worse off since the 2025 inauguration. Forty-six percent say they and their families are personally worse off.

Then there is the number that cuts the other way. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans said higher prices come from factors outside the president’s control.

So the electorate is not split on whether prices are high. It is split on who owns them, and that split runs along party lines almost perfectly.

Breitbart reported the results.

There is a competing set of figures, and it is worth putting beside the poll because it measures something different.

The poll measures how people feel about prices. Bureau of Labor Statistics data measures what happened to paychecks against those prices.

On that second measure, Breitbart reported that the average private-sector paycheck has grown faster than prices since the president took office, and that real pay has been growing faster still in recent months.

Both things can be true at once, and this is where most of the argument about the economy actually lives.

Real wages can beat inflation while the level of prices stays high. Wages catching up does not undo three years of increases already baked into a grocery bill.

A family whose pay went up four percent against prices up three percent is better off than last year and still paying more for everything than they did in 2021. They notice the second part at the register every week.

That is the gap the White House has not closed, and polling on a question about blame is going to find it every time.

Thirty days out, both parties are running on this. Republicans are pointing at wages and energy policy, and Democrats are pointing at the receipt.