Overall, economic sentiment for Trump is poor, but small businesses seem fairly confident, according to several surveys There are 34m small businesses in the United States. They employ approximately half of the country’s workers and generate about half of the country’s GDP. They’re an important voting block.
Page F121From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 18 October 2026
Farmers who backed Trump for a decade turn two weeks before Republicans must defend Congress.
As it ran on the front
The installment already cleared, and the comparison already ran: Social Security's 2027 raise landed a tenth of a point behind the inflation it was meant to track. That gap, as of this week, has a name attached to it in five separate places.
On October 5th, the first name came from a Reuters/Ipsos poll putting approval at thirty-two percent, a record low, with Latino voters cited specifically as part of the drop from 2024 support levels. On September 23rd, before that number ran, The Hill had already clocked a softer version of the same erosion in rural counties: support chipping away as living costs rose. By October 9th the University of Michigan's own sentiment index read 46.3, the second-lowest reading the survey has recorded, down from 48.1 the month before.…
…(cont) This week the index got a map.
The Latino number got specific too. The Hill's October 5th survey, conducted by NBC News and Telemundo, put Latino preference for Democratic control of Congress at a twenty-four-point margin.
One number declines to fit the pattern. The Guardian's small-business surveys show owner confidence holding steady even as the broader mood collapses around it — thirty-four million firms, roughly half the country's workforce, reading the same economy differently than everyone else measuring it this week. The receipts offer no accounting for why that slice holds when the rest does not.
NBC's poll, taken the same week as all of the above, puts the country's own verdict at seventy-one percent calling the direction of the country wrong. Republicans have sixteen days left to move that number before they stand for the Congress the five-thousand-dollar check was supposed to buy.
“You don't buy back ten years of farm-belt loyalty with a ninety-dollar check, and you sure don't buy it back from a Miami congresswoman who's up for reelection herself. When your own side starts cutting ads telling you you've gone too far, that's not a messaging problem, that's the invoice coming due. Seventy-one percent say the country's headed the wrong way — that's not a poll, that's a receipt with everybody's name on it.”
“Look, consumer sentiment is a notoriously noisy indicator, you can't read a whole midterm off one Michigan trip and a farm-belt op-ed — and small business confidence is actually holding up fine, which proves the fundamentals are strong. Did I say strong? I meant stable. The Salazar ad is just one member doing constituent outreach, it's not — it's not a trend, that's not a word I'd use for a trend.”
Earlier in this story
- Record-low approval arrives before Vance finishes asking voters for more time. By Ruth · the morning edition, 18 October 2026
- Trump's $5,000 a head arrived as $90 out of the Medicare fund he called a pointless slush fund, with the other $4,910 due only if Republicans keep both chambers November 3 By Lou · the evening edition, 18 October 2026
The receipts
Farmers and ranchers have supported President Trump for a decade. But the war in Iran, tariffs and other administration policies have soured some on the G.O.P.
Due to high fuel and housing costs, and wages that aren't keeping pace with inflation, consumer sentiment is lower than at almost any other time in modern history. With the 2026 midterm elections just weeks away, CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes traveled to Michigan to find out how the economy is playing on the minds…
Due to high fuel and housing costs, and wages that aren't keeping pace with inflation, consumer sentiment is lower than at almost any other time in modern history. CBS News spoke with Michiganders to find out how the economy is playing on the minds of voters.
Consumer sentiment fell to the second-lowest reading on record for October, leaving Republicans little time to reverse a major liability in terms of voters’ negative perceptions of the economy before the midterm elections. Consumer sentiment fell to 46.3, down from 48.1 in September, according to a preliminary reading of the University…
Weeks ahead of Election Day, 71% of U.S. adults think the country is on the “wrong track.”
Rep. María Elvira Salazar filmed an ad warning the president that he's "gone too far" on immigration. It reflected concern among some Republicans that their gains with Latino voters could be at risk.
· Trump approval ratings plummet to new low, polls show from the morgue, 5 Oct 2026
· Economic frustrations chip away at Trump's rural support from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
· Latino voters favor Democratic control of Congress by 24-point margin: Survey from the morgue, 5 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.