Trump in Rome touts "affordability fix" as local Democrats, business owners push back

President Donald Trump arrived in northwest Georgia on Thursday with a clear message: the affordability crisis is over.

Speaking first at a local restaurant and later on the floor of Coosa Steel Corporation, Trump told supporters that inflation is no longer a problem and blamed Democrats for rising costs during his first term.

"They caused the affordability problem. And we solved it," the president said.

But in Floyd County, that claim is colliding with a different reality — one playing out in storefronts and on family budgets across Rome.

In the race for Georgia's 14th Congressional District seat, formerly held by Marjorie Taylor Greene, local Democrats argue the campaign has become a referendum on economic strain in northwest Georgia. Vincent Mendes, chair of the Floyd County Democratic Party, said voters are focused less on political theater and more on their wallets.

"People in northwest Georgia are tired of being ignored," Mendes said. "We're tired of seeing prices skyrocket while we're lied to and told that the economy's doing fantastic."

For Sunny Knauss, that frustration is personal. After seven years running Sunflower Bakery in Rome, she closed her doors, saying the math simply stopped working. Wholesale prices for supplies — including paper goods and key ingredients — doubled in the span of a year.

"Some of my supply prices are 100% what they used to be," Knauss said. "When things cost more and this product is 100% more, you can't charge 100% more for your product."

Eggs were among the hardest hit.

"Even the local eggs that we used are 100% more than they used to be," she said. "And we make a lot of things with eggs — breakfast, quiche, muffins."

A quiche that once sold for $27.50 rose to $42 in a single year.

"That's an expensive quiche," she acknowledged.

Ultimately, she said, customers couldn't absorb those increases — and neither could she.

The White House has said Trump's Georgia trip was designed to highlight economic gains and energize Republicans ahead of the March 10 special election to replace Greene. At Coosa Steel, the company's owner credited Trump's tariffs with benefiting his business, even as new research tied to one of the nation's largest banks shows tariffs paid by midsize U.S. companies tripled over the past year — costs many businesses say are passed along to customers through higher prices, reduced hiring, or thinner profit margins.

Yet before he pivoted fully to the economy, Trump returned to familiar ground: the 2020 election.

"They came in, they took all those ballots; all those crooked ballots were taken," Trump said, referencing the recent FBI seizure of election materials from Fulton County. "The Democrats are fighting like hell. They don't want anyone to see those ballots. Let's see what happens."

Audits, state officials, courts, and Trump's own former attorney general have rejected claims of widespread fraud in Georgia's 2020 election. Still, at the steel plant, Trump repeated his charge that Democrats "cheated like dogs."

His visit comes less than a month after federal agents seized voting records and ballots from Fulton County, Georgia's largest Democratic stronghold. Critics say the affidavit behind the warrant relies on long-debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The Georgia State Election Board — which has a Trump-aligned majority — held its first meeting since the raid this week amid calls from some conservatives for a state takeover of Fulton County elections. 

Hours before that meeting, Trump amplified a social media post calling for such a move.

At the same time, fractures inside the Georgia GOP remain visible. Former Tennessee football coach and U.S. Senate candidate Derek Dooley was recorded saying "Trump lost Georgia," underscoring lingering tensions between Trump and some Republican leaders in the state. 

Even among supporters in Rome, there are signs of fatigue over relitigating 2020.

"I'm not concerned about relitigating the past," said Scott Johnson, a longtime GOP leader from Marietta who attended the event. "I'm concerned about moving forward in the future."

Trump campaigned alongside his preferred candidate in the special election, district attorney Clay Fuller, while other Republican contenders continue competing for the district's deeply conservative base. Greene herself, once among Trump's most vocal allies, has publicly criticized Republican leadership over rising health insurance costs tied to expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits.

In a district that has long leaned heavily Republican, the political outcome may not hinge on one bakery or one campaign speech. But for voters navigating higher grocery bills and business owners recalculating what customers can afford, the debate over affordability is not abstract.

As Trump left Rome insisting the crisis is solved, many here say the question is not whether Washington declares victory — but whether their balance sheets agree.