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For much of 2025 we have been mocking the University of Michigan survey, and especially its short and long-term inflation expectation question, for the simple reason that the divergence between republican and democrat respondents is no longer merely grotesque but is a caricature of Goebbelsian propaganda, meant to spark fear that runaway inflation is coming and crash markets (even as today's CPI showed - again - it isn't).

But maybe we were wrong all along, and Democrats - who by definition live mostly in Democratic states - are indeed experiencing higher inflation. 

According to a geographic analysis of price trends from Bloomberg, while the overall US inflation rate rose 2.4% in May from a year earlier, sharp geographic divergences remain. Indeed, bicoastal inflation in the predominantly Democratic states along the East and the West coasts of the country were generally above the US average, and far above Republicans strongholds like flyover states and the deep south.

The inflation rate in West Coast states was at 2.8% in May: in the illegal-alien bastion of Los Angeles metro area the rate was 3%, and it was even higher, at 3.8%, in San Diego. The rate fell to 3.4% in the Democratic stronghold that is New York City from 3.9% in April but is still among the highest by metro area. 

Meanwhile, in mid-Atlantic states along with New England states, inflation was at 2.8% in May. East Coast prices are being driven largely by housing and rent. Meanwhile, the lowest rate in the country - by a relatively wide margin at 1.4% - was in the West South Central region, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Inflation between the regions with the highest inflation is twice as high as the parts of the country with the lowest price growth, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.

In other words, another fringe benefit of voting in Democrats every election is having to pay much higher prices for, well, everything. 

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