By Ed Ou
JACKSON, Mississippi, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Maria Lopez sees the customers at the Mississippi grocery store she manages struggle to afford the basics. It's not much easier for her: she keeps the heater off in her car to save gas and even buying milk at her own store can be hard.
"Instead of getting a big gallon, we'll do half a gallon," Lopez, a 42-year-old whose store is in Jackson, said, adding that she is also struggling to afford health insurance and prescriptions. "It's just me and my daughter...
I don't know how other families are making it happen that don't have food stamps."
Lopez's experience is a window into one of the issues that drove this month's midterm election wins for Democrats, as American voters turned on President Donald Trump. Democrats picked up at least 41 seats in the House of Representatives and at least 7 in the Senate, with votes still being counted in a close Mississippi race that could send the state's first Democrat to the US Senate in 44 years.
Mississippi is the second-poorest US state, trailing only Louisiana. In the capital city of Jackson, over a quarter of its 141,000 residents live in poverty, more than double the US average, according to the Census Bureau.
That made prices – of gas, of food, of almost everything – a key issue in this year's midterm elections in Mississippi where Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith was accused by Democrats of being insensitive when she told voters worried about the price of beef that they should pick another protein. Democrat Scott Colom made the most of her misstep, suggesting in a campaign ad that the state "pick another senator" instead.
Hinds County, which includes Jackson, has long been one of Mississippi's most reliable Democratic strongholds.
This year, 80% of voters in the county backed Colom and 19% supported Hyde-Smith. Republicans' share of the vote in Hinds County fell by more than 7 percentage points from the 2024 election that returned Trump to the White House, according to Reuters and USA Today.
COULD EXTEND DEMOCRATS' MAJORITY
The outcome in Mississippi and Alaska, where the Senate race is also not yet called, will determine whether the Democratic Party extends its sweeping election victory.
For Lopez, who supports Colom, the election was less about party politics than the hope that whoever wins can ease the burden on household budgets.
At the independent Dash Food Market, which serves many low-income shoppers, she sees the strain every day.
"I used to get like six bags or seven bags," Tonya Plunkett, 50, a retired state worker who supports Colom, said of a $60 grocery trip. "Now $60 of groceries give me one bag, and you've got to decide what's important: medicine or food or gas."
Nesha Thomas, a fast-food employee and mother of six, said stretching a paycheck has become increasingly difficult. She cast her vote for Colom.
"I spend every dime that I get on my kids, so therefore I'm always broke," she said. "Scott is trying to help us bring these prices down, especially gas prices because they are outrageous."
The squeeze is also hitting Dash, where sales are down sharply from a year ago, according to Lopez. On a recent Friday, sales were about half their normal level, she said.
That worries her not only because she needs the job at Dash, but because it is one of the few grocery stores in the neighborhood.
"The community needs the store," Lopez said. "I need my job."
(Reporting by Ed Ou in Jackson, Mississippi; Writing by Brad Heath and Nichola Groom; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
