Older Arizona voters are closely watching Trump's tariffs — and their retirement accounts

SUN CITY, Ariz. (AP) — Susan Hemphill said she's always been frugal with her spending. But the recent volatility in the stock market caused by President Donald Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs and an escalating trade war with China have made her even more cautious.

These days, Hemphill is staying closer to home in Sun City, Arizona, a 55-and-older community near Phoenix. No more day trips to Sedona, the retired union organizer said, fighting tears as she wondered aloud whether she could run out of money.

“I’m so tired of Trump playing with our lives,” said Hemphill, who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in November. “I’m too old for this. I just really want to be retired. I want to enjoy — I don’t want to worry.”

Trump was elected with a promise to improve the economy, lower taxes and control inflation, addressing voters who said overwhelmingly that the economy was the top issue facing the country. But for retirees like Hemphill, the Republican president's economic stewardship has been defined by the roller coaster of the stock market and fears his tariffs will lead to higher inflation.

“Some are considering curtailing their spending, such as saving their tax refunds instead of spending them, while others are adjusting their investment strategies by moving money into more conservative allocations like bonds and gold,” said Prudence Zhu, a Phoenix-area financial adviser, in an email. “While this is often an emotional response, it’s not necessarily the optimal strategy in most cases.”

How all of those issues shake out could have a notable impact on the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, as the center of political gravity shifts increasingly toward battleground states in the South and the West, places like Arizona that are popular with retirees.

Like other emerging political battlegrounds Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina, Arizona's population has exploded over the past half-century, welcoming newcomers who have transformed its politics.

Though Arizona has moved from reliably Republican to a battleground, Trump enjoys overwhelming support in Sun City, where Hemphill is among the 40,000 residents in a community that sprouted from the desert in the 1960s. Trump won every precinct in Sun City, most of them by double digits.

Trump supporters like Paul Estok said they’re confident that the president has a handle on the situation and that things will stabilize with time.

“I’m real happy about what’s going on,” said Estok, who gets three pensions from the various government agencies where he worked as a union stationary engineer in the Chicago area. He’s confident the pensions are secure.

The tariffs Trump announced on much of the world sparked turmoil in the stock market earlier this month, before the president abruptly hit pause on most of them. But the drama isn't over. Trump said the 90-day pause would be used to negotiate over tariffs with other countries, but he increased the tax rate on Chinese imports to 145%.

Estok said he's thrilled to see a president tough enough to impose tariffs despite the economic consequences. Echoing Trump, he said other countries “have been taking so much advantage of us.”

“No one’s ever stepped up and said, ‘Hey, enough’s enough,’” Estok said, climbing into his truck after stopping at a grocery store on his way home from the golf course.

Don Welling, an 82-year-old Trump voter, said those alarmed by the tariffs are misguided. He didn’t enjoy seeing his portfolio take a dip, but he wasn’t worried.

“If people would pay attention to what he said when he was campaigning, things would be better,” Welling said as he loaded groceries into his golf cart.

Some retirees said they're worried about the effect Trump’s federal cost-cutting is having on Social Security. While Trump insists he will not cut benefits, his administration has eliminated thousands of jobs at the Social Security Administration, leading to complaints about long call wait times.

Karl Feiste winced to see his investments fall 20% in the days after Trump announced his tariffs, but he said, so far, his losses are only on paper.

“If that turns around, then I can still continue to do what I’ve been doing,” said Feiste, a Vietnam War veteran who voted for Harris. “But I’m not planning on buying a car. I’m not planning on moving. I’m not planning on taking extravagant vacations. I’m wondering what’s going to happen to the market because that basically dictates what leisure money I have.”

He worries his Social Security checks, which make up half his income, could eventually fall victim to Trump’s aggressive government cost-cutting.

“That smarts," Feiste said. “Because I can’t live if he takes my Social Security.”

Trump carried Arizona voters who were age 65 or older, winning 52% of this group compared with Harris’ 47%, broadly in line with his national margin among seniors, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of voters and nonvoters that aims to tell the story behind election results.

Older Arizona voters were less likely than voters overall to consider “the economy and jobs” the most important issue facing the country, and they were more likely to consider immigration the top problem. About 3 in 10 seniors said the economy was the biggest problem, compared with about 4 in 10 Arizona voters overall.

Hans Vinge, 62, took a prime golf cart parking spot during a grocery store run one recent morning. A former Republican disillusioned by the party’s ideological shift under Trump, he thinks the president is doing too much, too fast, with unrealistic expectations for what his tariffs can accomplish.

“We’re not ready right now. These companies aren’t going to come from offshore into America,” Vinge said. “It’s going to take 10, 15 years to get these companies in to Americanize everything, which is great. But it’s just it’s too disruptive right now.”

Vinge, who is retired from the Air Force and splits his time between North Dakota and Arizona, said it’s too stressful to follow the news day to day, but it’s hard to avoid. When he last peeked at the balance of his retirement account, it had fallen $23,000 in one week, he said.

“It’s disappointing to see something that’s been doing well for you,” Vinge said. “I wish I would’ve invested more in gold.”

Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed.

President Donald Trump speaks during the Commander-in-Chief trophy presentation to the Navy Midshipman football team in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump is displayed on a television on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Traders work on the options trading floor at the Cboe Global Markets in Chicago, Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

President Donald Trump speaks during the Commander-in-Chief trophy presentation to the Navy Midshipman football team in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump is traveling to Michigan on Tuesday to promote his efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing, trying to counter fears about a weakening job market and worries that still-rising prices are taking a toll on Americans' pocketbooks.

The day trip will include a tour of a Ford factory in Dearborn that makes F-150 pickups, the bestselling domestic vehicle in the U.S. The Republican president is also set to deliver a speech at the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino.

It comes as the Trump administration’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has sparked an outcry, with defenders of the U.S. central bank pushing back against Trump's efforts to exert more control over it.

Federal data from December released before the president left Washington showed Inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell — a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing. Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the Labor Department said, the same as in November.

“We have very low inflation,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn as he left Washington, adding “and growth is going up. We have tremendous growth numbers.”

November's off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere illustrated a shift away from Republicans as public concerns about kitchen table issues persist. In their wake, the White House said Trump would put a greater emphasis on talking directly to the public about his economic policies after doing relatively few events around the country earlier in his term.

The president has suggested that jitters about affordability are a “hoax” unnecessarily stirred by Democrats. Still, though he's imposed steep tariffs on U.S. trading partners around the world, Trump has reduced some of them when it comes to making cars — including extending import levies on foreign-made auto parts until 2030.

Ford announced last month that it was scrapping plans to make an electric F-150, despite pouring billions of dollars into broader electrification, after the Trump administration slashed targets to have half of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030, eliminated EV tax credits and proposed weakening the emissions and gas mileage rules.

Trump's Michigan swing follows economy-focused speeches he gave last month in Pennsylvania — where his gripes about immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation — and North Carolina, where he insisted his tariffs have spurred the economy, despite residents noting the squeeze of higher prices.

Trump carried Michigan in 2016 and 2024, after it swung Democratic and backed Joe Biden in 2020. He marked his first 100 days in office with a rally-style April speech outside Detroit, where he focused more on past campaign grudges than his administration's economic or policy plans.

During that visit nearly nine months ago, Trump also spoke at Selfridge Air National Guard Base and announced a new fighter jet mission, allaying fears that the base could close. It represented a win for Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — and the two even shared a hug.

This time, Democrats have panned the president's trip, singling out national Republicans' opposition to extending health care subsidies and recalling a moment in October 2024 when Trump, then also addressing the Detroit Economic Club, said that Democrats' retaining the White House would mean “our whole country will end up being like Detroit."

"You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said during a campaign stop back then.

Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said that “after spending months claiming that affordability was a ‘hoax’ and creating a health care crisis for Michiganders, Donald Trump is now coming to Detroit — a city he hates — to tout his billionaire-first agenda while working families suffer."

“Michiganders are feeling the effects of Trump’s economy every day,” Hertel said in a statement.

Weissert reported from Washington.

President Donald Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, reflected on door, leave to board Marine One, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)