What motivated people according to polls was firstly inflation, then a distant second was either abortion or illegal border crossings. You're pretty much correc

What motivated people according to polls was firstly inflation, then a distant second was either abortion or illegal border crossings. You're pretty much correct. It's been pointed out this quarter that inflation has been abated and wage growth has improved, but notwithstanding that people continue to feel worse off financially, they remain resentful. The DNC made some blunders. Leaving aside covid spending, they screwed up reverting Trump's border policy and waited too long to fix it. Harris was weak on messaging and came up with the Housing plan too late, didn't champion the CHIPS act enough. Also, the newscycle was constantly showing the US spending large sums both domestically and abroad which had an impact on inflation. And of course there's all the other culture-war/DEI stuff that isn't strictly within the purview of the feds but feeds into resentment.