NEW YORK — As their party struggles to navigate the early days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, some Democrats are convinced that their road to recovery lies in the price of eggs.
Instead of leaning into Trump’s teardown of the federal government or his alliance with billionaire lieutenant Elon Musk, they’re steering to what they perceive as the everyday concerns of Americans — none more important than grocery prices and eggs in particular.
U.S. egg prices hit a record average of $4.95 per dozen in January, surpassing a previous record set in January 2023, according to federal data. In some parts of the country, they’re much higher. A Safeway supermarket in San Francisco was selling a dozen eggs for $10.99 this week.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects egg prices to rise 41% this year. Already, some restaurants are adding temporary surcharges when customers order eggs. Denny’s said its surcharge varies by region and even by restaurant, while Waffle House added a 50-cent surcharge per egg at all its restaurants.
The Democratic establishment’s focus on blaming Trump for those price spikes represents a stark break from its activists, who have launched a protest movement arguing that Trump is a budding dictator with no regard for the Constitution.
Such concerns may be valid, some Democratic members of Congress say, but they don’t resonate with working-class Americans trying to feed their families.
“When that is your day-to-day worry, the philosophical conversations about a constitutional crisis or the democracy is simply not a luxury you can afford,” Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Mich. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t worry about those things, because we should and they are important, but they are not primary in the minds of the people in Saginaw, Michigan.”
The message underscores the Democratic ecosystem’s broad acknowledgment that the party must make changes to win back the hearts and minds of voters worried about the economy, who shifted toward Trump’s GOP last fall and gave Republicans control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
It’s unclear, however, whether the Democrats’ newfound focus will do much in the short term to stop Trump’s sweeping campaign to consolidate power in Washington or if it can harness the energy of the party’s progressive base, which wants new and creative solutions to address what they view as an existential threat.
Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin, whose organization helped coordinate a nationwide protest movement that put House Republicans on defense, called the Democrats’ focus on eggs “a communications strategy built for a 1990s policy fight.”
“They’re looking at polls that say inflation is unpopular, and they think Dems can win people with boring, tired talking points,” Levin said. “But it’s 2025 — this isn’t how politics works anymore. And their failure to update their approach to creeping authoritarianism is a simple failure of leadership.”
The Democratic establishment’s new approach echoed across Washington this week after Trump delivered a 99-minute speech to a joint session of Congress. Trump defended the tariffs he has threatened to impose on America’s trading partners. A trade war could boost prices further on everything from fruits and vegetables to cellphones, lumber and cars.
In the opening hours of Trump’s presidency, the Democratic National Committee issued talking points encouraging allies to talk about “Trump’s plans to screw over America” and highlight Trump’s alliances with Musk and other tech billionaires.
The DNC’s talking points sounded different after Tuesday’s speech.
“We saw Trump ramble on about invading Greenland and planting the American flag on Mars, but what we didn’t hear was a plan to lower costs and address Americans’ anxiety about the looming economic disaster he’s driving us toward,” read the DNC talking points. “Consumer confidence has fallen sharply, everyday costs are skyrocketing, and congressional Republicans are pushing deeply unpopular tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.”
At the same time, Democratic officials shared new internal data Thursday that they say indicates inflation and the cost of living are voters’ top priority. Democracy, by contrast, ranked No. 12.
Public polling goes further.
A Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that one month into the new administration, U.S. adults remain almost universally unhappy about the cost of groceries. According to the survey, about 9 in 10 Americans say that food prices are “not so good” or “poor,” including about half who say they’re “poor.” And a CNN/SSRS poll conducted in mid-February found that about 6 in 10 Americans said Trump had “not gone far enough” in trying to reduce the price of everyday goods.
But the party is hardly united on the new approach.
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was ejected from the House chamber during Trump’s speech and eventually censured for refusing to stop shouting his concerns about potential Medicaid cuts. Other Democrats silently waved small signs that read “Musk steals,” “Save Medicaid” and “Lies.” Still others skipped the speech altogether in protest.
In this week’s speech, Trump blamed the surge on his Democratic predecessor.
“Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control — the egg prices out of control. We’re working hard to get it back down,” Trump charged as Democrats in the chamber booed.
The industry and most experts agree that the ongoing bird flu outbreak is the main reason egg prices are setting records, although some question whether egg producers are inflating prices to boost profits.
As further evidence that Trump’s team is aware that the situation is becoming a political liability, Musk used his social media platform on Thursday to cast more blame on Biden.
“There was an insane slaughter of 150 million egg-laying chickens ordered by the Biden administration,” Musk wrote on X, neglecting to mention the millions of egg-laying chickens killed since Trump took office.
Indeed, as of Thursday afternoon, 27,116,857 birds have been killed since Trump returned to the White House to limit the spread of bird flu. That’s because the federal government’s longstanding policy requires farmers to kill their entire flocks anytime a bird gets sick to help limit the spread of the virus.
Overall, more than 166 million birds — most of them egg-laying chickens — have been slaughtered since the outbreak began in 2022.
The Trump administration did unveil a plan to combat bird flu to help ease egg prices. But the impact is hard to predict given that the $1 billion plan isn’t a drastic departure from the previous policy.
Specifically, Trump’s plan doesn’t change the USDA’s longstanding policy of slaughtering flocks when a sick bird is found. Instead, the plan focuses on helping farmers adopt the most effective biosecurity measures to keep the virus out and explores the prospects for a bird flu vaccine, among other moves.
Rep. Josh Riley, D-N.Y., who recently confronted a bird flu outbreak in his upstate district, said almost every conversation he has with constituents centers on rising prices, especially eggs. He made a direct link between concerns about the economy and democracy.
“If you’re worried about our democracy … that’s more of a reason to be worried about the price of eggs,” Riley said. “The reason our democracy is in the situation is in, the reason our country is in the situation it’s in, is because for decades, politicians have neglected the needs of everyday working people.”
He continued: “Is it any wonder, after 40 years of shipping jobs overseas just to make Wall Street rich, after three years of egg prices skyrocketing and nobody around this place doing a goddamn thing about it, that people are really, really frustrated and believe that our democracy does not work for them? Can you blame them?”
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AP writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska; Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit; and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed.
