Election Day Is Tomorrow, and Miami-Dade Voters Are Headed to the Polls in a Sour Economic Mood
Reuters' eve-of-election reporting finds prices, not politics, at the top of voters' minds — even with unemployment at 4.2 percent. Florida has already cast 5.4 million ballots; Miami-Dade's turn at its assigned precincts comes Tuesday, 7 to 7.
Miami-Dade votes tomorrow in a country that is, by the numbers Reuters assembled on the eve of the midterms, doing fine and feeling lousy about it. Reuters reported Monday that voters' minds are on the economy heading into elections that will decide whether President Donald Trump's Republican Party keeps control of Congress, with high and rising prices the key issue and many voters blaming his policies — specifically tariffs and the Iran war — for nagging inflation. Trump is not on the November 3 ballot, but Reuters found voters weighing his economic record as they head to the polls, in a mood the wire described as skeptical, if not downright grumpy.
The hard numbers cut the other way, which is what makes this an honest story rather than a mood piece. The unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in September and has measured no higher than 4.5 percent for five straight years, the longest such stretch on record; weekly unemployment claims are near a 57-year low; and the AI investment boom has until recently driven the stock market to dozens of record highs. Against that, consumer prices and average hourly earnings have both risen about 5.5 percent since January 2025, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited by Reuters — a tie that feels like a loss at the checkout. The surveys split the same way: the Conference Board's confidence measure perked up in October, while the University of Michigan's sentiment index registered a near-record low. As Annex Wealth Management's Brian Jacobsen put it to Reuters, the confidence index tracks the macroeconomy, while the sentiment index tracks how people actually feel.
What is at stake nationally is narrow and total at once: Democrats need a net gain of four seats in each chamber to overturn Republican majorities of 218-214 in the House and 53-47 in the Senate, and Reuters reports the Justice Department plans about 1,000 election monitors nationwide on Tuesday, roughly triple the number used in the last midterms. Florida has already spoken early — 5,401,055 ballots in, with Miami-Dade's 485,722 the most of any county in the state. The rest of Miami-Dade votes Tuesday at its assigned precincts, polls open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; a mail ballot still in hand must be received — not postmarked — by 7 p.m. at Elections Headquarters in Doral or the Downtown Branch Office, and it cannot be dropped at a polling place.
