The economic crunch ahead of the elections crunch

Welcome to the daily Inside Scoop newsletter. It’s Emily. Yasmin is off today. Business and data correspondent Brian Cheung filled in for her on the “Here’s the Scoop” podcast, where he and chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles broke down the new inflation rate and its potential impact on the midterms. It was a lively conversation. More on that below. Also, our director of elections John Lapinski texts with me about NBC News’ very comprehensive early-voting tracker. Let’s get into it. Inflation is squeezing Americans, rising higher than economists predicted. Overall prices rose 3.7% from a year ago, and 0.6% from August, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report out today.