Election anxiety is causing many consumers to avoid big-ticket purchases like houses, weddings and cars. “Every four years this happens,” one former car dealer said.
In Westport, Conn., a 35-year-old who works for an investment firm is holding off on making any financial investments until after the election. Across the country, in Kenosha, Wis., a man who works in sales said he would love to buy a house and get out of his rental, but with Election Day less than a month away, he can’t possibly make such a colossal decision.
Call it the election shopping slump.
The looming presidential election — with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump locked in a dead heat in the polls — has injected one variable too many into an already confusing time for the economy, with inflation, high interest rates and a surprisingly strong job market. The country is on edge, and consumers on both sides of the political aisle are reluctant to make big-ticket purchases. They are holding their pocketbooks close.
Some home buyers are waiting to see if a Harris administration will deliver down-payment assistance for first-time buyers, a campaign promise. Others are hopeful a Trump victory will spell lower taxes. Still others just want it all to be over already.
The American pastime of spending money on stuff — a honeymoon in paradise, that new car smell, a kitchen renovation, impulsive online shopping — is currently on pause for some. There are engaged couples so preoccupied with the current state of affairs that they can’t commit to wedding venues for 2025, and some who, a year ago, anticipating that a political pall could color their big day, steered clear of October and November dates. Car dealers and real estate agents say buyers are waiting out the election to see if interest rates or prices fall in the aftermath. Online retailers have been bracing for the election jitters since the summer.
“They’re frozen,” Antonio del Rosario, a New York City real estate broker, said of home buyers and sellers. Election-related angst sets in around this time every four years, he said, with buyers and sellers wondering if a new administration will mean a change in tax policy, the economy or the overall direction of the country. This year, clients seem especially confused about what’s to come. “There is a deer-in-the-headlights attitude,” Mr. del Rosario added.
Consumers do not like uncertainty. When people feel they’re on unstable ground, they retreat and hoard resources. In the modern era, those resources are usually cash. “It’s not like people don’t know they’re going to need a house, they’re going to need a car,” said Kelly Goldsmith, a marketing professor and behavioral scientist at Vanderbilt University who studies the psychology of uncertainty and scarcity. But, she added, “if the world starts to fall apart, you benefit from having a bunch of money in your mattress, right?”