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(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Inflation has fallen over the final months of the presidential campaign, carrying potential implications for a tight race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

More than half of adults list inflation as a top issue for the country, making it the highest-ranking concern by a wide margin over issues like immigration, crime and abortion, according to an Ipsos poll conducted late last month.

Price increases nationwide have largely returned to normal. However, the presidential race is widely expected to hinge on the results in seven closely contested battleground states, placing importance on where inflation stands in those key locations.

An analysis by ABC News found that inflation rates vary significantly across four major cities situated in battleground states: Detroit, Michigan; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In each of those states, the average polling margin between the two candidates is no more than two percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Here’s what to know about what inflation looks like in swing-state cities and what that means for the election:

Detroit, Michigan

Consumer prices rose 3.5% in Detroit over the year ending in August, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That figure stands a percentage point above the national average and marks the highest inflation rate of the four cities examined by ABC News.

The surge in prices has stemmed in large part from rapidly rising housing costs, Gabriel Ehrlich, an economist at the University of Michigan, told ABC News. The trend marks a recent turnabout from sluggish housing prices that had taken hold in the city in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession.

Back then, a crisis in the auto industry caused rising unemployment, an exodus from Detroit and diminishing demand for homes. As Detroit has since improved its economic performance, however, the population has begun to grow and housing prices have started to soar. Housing costs climbed 6.2% in Detroit over the year ending in August, which stands more than a percentage point higher than the national average.

Even if the improved economic performance has contributed to the rise in housing prices, that silver lining offers little solace for city residents paying high costs, Ehrlich said.

“That’s a hard sell,” he added.

Phoenix, Arizona

In Phoenix, the inflation rate clocks in at 2.3%, according to BLS data for August, the most recent month on record. That pace of price increases is slightly lower than the national average.

Like Detroit, housing prices play a significant role in the dynamic behind costs in Phoenix – but it’s for the opposite reason. Housing prices there are rising at a pace of 3.5%, well below the national average of more than 6%.

The moderate pace of current housing price increases in Phoenix marks welcome relief after a bruising stretch of skyrocketing costs, Lee McPheters, director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University, told ABC News. Since 2017, housing prices in the Phoenix area have doubled, he added.

The price increases have slowed, however, as Phoenix has made a concerted effort to ramp up home construction and address its dearth of supply.

Phoenix is expected to build roughly 20,000 apartments in 2024, granting it the fourth-highest apartment construction rate of any U.S. city, a RentCafe study in August found. That total would amount to a 88% increase from the apartment construction rate achieved two years prior, according to the Maricopa Association of Governments.

“There’s of course been the same housing shortage issues in Phoenix that you see across the country,” McPheters said. “The difference here is that Arizona responded.”

Atlanta, Georgia

As of August, the inflation rate in Atlanta stands at 1.7%, which clocks in nearly a percentage point lower than the national average and is the lowest pace for any of the swing-state cities examined by ABC News.

Prices in Atlanta have risen at a slower pace than the national average for a range of essential products, including housing, meat, poultry, fish and eggs.

Gasoline prices have dropped nationwide over the past year but they’ve fallen even more in Atlanta. The same trend applies to the price of new and used cars, the latter of which has fallen a staggering 11% over the past year.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Consumer prices in the Philadelphia area climbed 3.4% over the year ending in August, BLS data showed. The city’s inflation rate registers nearly a percentage point higher than the national average.

In Philadelphia, prices for many food and beverage products are rising faster than the national average. Over the past year, prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs have climbed at more than twice the national average pace. Cereal and bakery products have surged 2.5% over the past year in Philadelphia, even though prices for such goods have fallen by 1% nationwide.

The prices for nonalcoholic beverages in Philadelphia have climbed more than six times faster than the national average over the past year.

Erasmus Kersting, a professor of economics at Villanova University, said the sharp increase in prices for some food items may owed to a lack of competition among grocery stores in Philadelphia. In the absence of fierce competition, grocery stores retain the latitude to raise prices without fear of a rival offering a better deal on comparable products, Kersting explained.

Two supermarket chains, Giant and ShopRite, accounted for 56% of the local grocery market in 2022, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal.

“Grocery store prices have gone up a lot,” Kersting told ABC News. “Some of this has to do with market structure. How many competitors do grocery stores have?”

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(WASHINGTON) — While Election Day is finally here, more than 83 million people have already cast their ballots.

Election Day was trending on the busy side, with roughly half of the 161.42 million registered voters still heading to the polls.

In Georgia, one of seven key swing states, long lines were forming outside polling stations, officials said, despite more than 4 million people in the Peach State having already voted.

In Fulton County, Georgia’s most populous county, which includes the city of Atlanta, nearly 30,000 people had cast their in-person ballots by 9:40 a.m. Tuesday, a little more than three-and-a-half hours after the polls opened at 7 a.m., said Nadine Williams, the Fulton County director of registration.

“All polling sites are secure with an active security presence,” said Williams, adding that the county had received five “non-credible” bomb threats Tuesday morning, two of which prompted the evacuation of voting locations for about 30 minutes each.

“Outside of these brief interruptions, Election Day has been quiet, with minimal issues reported and we remain prepared to address any misinformation or additional disruption to ensure a smooth experience for all voters today,” Williams said.

Of the 83 million voters nationwide who have already cast ballots, 45 million did so in person while 38 million mailed in ballots, according to the University of Florida Election Lab. About 37.7% of the early votes were cast by registered Democrats while 35.9% of Republicans voted early, according to the lab.

In the 2020 presidential election, 66% of eligible voters cast ballots, the highest of any national election. President Joe Biden beat Trump 51.31% to 46.85%, according to the Federal Election Commission.

This election is expected to be even closer than 2020.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Saturday showed Harris with an overall three-point advantage over Trump among likely voters nationwide, 49% to 46%.

Both Harris and Trump have spent the last week of the campaign barnstorming in battleground states, fighting tooth and nail for every last undecided vote. On Monday, the candidates engaged in a sprint to the finish line, holding multiple rallies in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

In a sampling of nine states, including the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, 54% of the early voters were women and 43.8% were men, according to the lab. The largest block of early voters, 39.4%, were 41- to-65-year-olds, while voters over 65 represented 34.5% of the early vote.

Younger voters — 26 to 40 years old — made up 17.5% of the early vote, while 8.7% of voters 18 to 25 cast early ballots, according to the lab.

Some states like North Carolina, another key swing state, have shattered records for early voting.

More than 4.4 million voters have cast early ballots in North Carolina, 4.2 million of them in person, according to the lab. The North Carolina Board of Elections said the number of early voters broke a record, surpassing the 3.6 million early votes cast in the 2020 election, officials said.

In the swing state of Pennsylvania, at least 1.8 million people voted early via mail-in ballots, according to the Florida Election Lab, which reported that 55.7% of the earlier voters were women and 32.8% were men.

Early voting in Georgia began on Oct. 15, and more than 3.7 million people voted in person, while another 265,648 cast mail-in ballots, according to the lab. A breakdown of the early voters showed 55.7% were women and 43.5% were men, according to the lab.

In other battleground states, Michigan saw 3.2 million voters casting mail-in ballots, 55% women and 44.9% men; 2.3 million cast early mail-in ballots in Arizona, 40.8% of whom are registered Republicans and 32% Democrats, according to the lab.

In Nevada, another swing state, a little over 1 million voters cast early ballots, including 543,271 who voted in person and 556,062 who sent in mail-in ballots, the lab reported. Of those who voted early in Nevada, 37.5% were Republican and 33.7% were Democrat, according to the lab.

And in the battleground state of Wisconsin, 1.5 million people voted early, including 949,157 who cast in-person ballots and 561,616 who cast mail-in ballots, the lab reported.

ABC News’ Olivia Rubin contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A chemical leak from a railcar prompted officials to issue an evacuation order for residents in the Cleves and Whitewater Township areas in Hamilton County, Ohio, authorities said Tuesday.

Hamilton County’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency told anyone within half a mile of the rail yard to leave the area immediately.

Authorities confirmed the leak was styrene, a flammable liquid used to make plastics and rubber, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

“The risk of an explosion is our primary concern,” an official said at a Tuesday night news conference. “We are asking residents within a three-quarter-mile radius to shelter in place as a precaution. Experts have assured us that this is well within the safety norms.”

Officials said 210 homes were located in the designated evacuation zone, though how many people have been impacted was not immediately known. Those needing shelter were advised to go to the Whitewater Township Center, officials said.

Although authorities said at an 11 p.m. ET news conference that the leak had been contained, people were still urged to avoid the area.

“We feel we’ve made significant progress by separating the affected rail car from the rest of the train,” an official said. “Monitoring and mitigation teams are working diligently to ensure everyone’s safety. In the meantime, we urge residents to stay out of the area.”

Authorities are closely monitoring air quality for styrene but said at the earlier news conference that they haven’t yet determined the exact levels.

The train in question consisted of 29 cars, some of which were also carrying styrene, officials said.

“Our first priority upon arriving at the scene was removing anything in close proximity to the leak,” an official confirmed.

Only one car was found to have leaked styrene, they said.

In response to questions on Tuesday night about when residents can return home, officials urged patience.

“We’re not going to rush this. Once it’s absolutely safe, we’ll let everyone know. For now, we encourage residents to monitor social media and news outlets for updates,” an official said.

In a post on Tuesday night X, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged those in the area to follow the directions of officials.

Cleves Township is almost 17 miles from Cincinnati, Ohio, while Whitewater Township is about 22 miles away.

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