Presidents seeking a second term have often found that public perception of the economy is a critical issue. It was a blessing to Ronald Reagan; helped remove Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush from the White House.
Now, as President Biden looks toward a re-election campaign, there are warning signs on that front: With overall consumer confidence on the decline despite strong economic data, even Democrats who supported Biden in 2020 say they are not impressed with the economy.
In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in six battleground states, 62 percent of those voters think the economy is only “fair” or “bad” (compared to 97 percent of those who voted by Donald J. Trump).
The demographics of Biden’s supporters in 2020 may explain part of his current challenge: They were generally younger, had lower incomes and were more racially diverse than Trump’s supporters. Those groups tend to be the hardest hit by inflation, which has not yet returned to 2020 levels, and high interest rates, which have frustrated first-time home buyers and strained the finances of those who rely on credit. .
But if the election were held today and the choices were Biden and Trump, it’s unclear whether voters’ perceptions of the economy would tip the balance.
“The last midterm election was a pro-abortion election,” said Joshua Doss, an analyst at public opinion research firm HIT Strategies, referring to the 2022 vote that followed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “More often than not, elections revolve around ‘it’s the economy, stupid.’ Republicans lost that thanks to Roe. So we are definitely in uncharted territory.”
There are things working in Biden’s favor. First, Doss said, the economic programs enacted under the Biden administration remain broadly popular, providing a political foundation on which Biden can build. And second, social issues (which boosted Democrats in the midterms) remain a major concern.
Take Oscar Núñez, 27, a waiter at a restaurant in Las Vegas. Foot traffic has been much slower than usual this time of year, eating into his tips. He would like to start his own business, but with the rising cost of living, he and his wife, who works at home answering questions from independent contractors for her employer, have not been able to save much money. It’s also a difficult leap to make when the economy feels unstable.
Nunez expected better from Biden when he voted blue in 2020, he said, but he wasn’t sure what specifically the president should have done better. And he’s pretty sure another Trump term would be a disaster.
“I would prefer another option, but it looks like he will be my only option again,” Núñez said of Biden. For him, immigrant rights and foreign policy concerns are more important. “That’s why I chose him and not Trump in the first place: because this guy is going to do something really dangerous at some point.”
Núñez is not the only one who feels dissatisfied with the economy, but is still tied to Biden over other priorities. Of respondents in the six battleground states who plan to vote for Biden in 2024, 47 percent say social issues are more important to them, while 42 percent say the economy is more important, but that’s a split closer than in the 2022 midterm elections, in which social issues decisively outweighed economic concerns among Democratic voters in several swing states. (Among likely Trump voters, 71 percent say they are more focused on the economy, while 15 percent favor social issues.)
The dour sentiment about the economy is also not limited to people who have become frustrated in their financial ambitions.
Mackenzie Kiser, 20, and Lawson Millwood, 21, students at the University of North Georgia, managed to buy a house this year. Mr. Millwood’s income as an information technology systems administrator at the university was enough to qualify, and he worried that affordability would only worsen if they waited because of rising interest rates and prices. Still, the experience left a bitter taste.
“The housing market is absolutely crazy,” said Kiser, who was not old enough to vote in 2020 but leans progressive. “We paid the same for our 1950s one-story, one-bedroom cinder block house as my mother paid for her three-story, four-bedroom house less than a decade ago.”
Kiser doesn’t think Biden has done much to help the economy and worries he is too old to be effective. But Trump is no more attractive on that front.
“It’s not that I think someone from a different party could do it better, but rather that someone of sound mind who is not of retirement age could do a better job,” Ms. Kiser said. “Our options are retirement age or retirement age, so it’s a tough spot right now.”
Voters generally don’t believe Republicans are fixing the economy either. in a survey conducted this month According to progressive-leaning Navigator Research, 70 percent of voters in contested House districts, including a majority of Republicans, said they thought Republicans were more focused on issues other than the economy.
The health of the economy remains an important variable ahead of the election. A slowdown could erode what the president cites as a notable achievement of Bidenomics: low unemployment. TO study of the 2016 elections found that higher localized unemployment made black voters, an overwhelmingly Democratic electorate, less likely to vote.
“I think the likelihood of Trump being elected is not the threat,” Doss said. “The threat is that they would choose the couch and stay home, and many of them would stay home so Trump would win in the electoral college.”
But in the absence of a competitive Democratic primary, the campaign (and television ads) have yet to begin in earnest. When they do, Mr. Doss has some ideas.
So far, Biden’s message has focused on macroeconomic indicators such as the unemployment rate and the fight against inflation. “The truth is, that’s not the economics for most people,” Doss said. “For most people, the economy is the price of gas and food and whether or not they can afford to throw a birthday party for their child.”
It is difficult for presidents to directly control inflation in the short term. But the White House has addressed some specific costs that are important to families, releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to contain rising oil prices in late 2022, for example. The Inflation Reduction Law reduced prescription drug prices under Medicare and capped the cost of insulin for people with diabetes. The administration also pursues what it calls “junk rates” that inflate the prices of things like concert tickets, airline tickets, and even birthday parties.
The more the administration talks about its concrete efforts to lower prices, the more Biden will benefit, Doss said. At the same time, Biden can reduce the impact of persistent inflation by deflecting blame: an out-of-control pandemic was the original cause, he could plausibly argue, and most other rich countries are worse off.
That’s what it seems to Kendra McDowell, 44, an accountant and single mother of four in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She feels the pinch of inflation every time she goes to the supermarket: she spent $1,000 on groceries last month and it doesn’t even fill her freezer and on the health of her customers’ balance sheets. However, despite her opinion that the economy is bad, she still has enough confidence to start a home care business, a field with increased demand since Covid-19 devastated nursing homes.
“When I talk about economics, it’s just inflation, and to me inflation is systemic and it comes from the Trump administration,” McDowell said. If the pandemic had been contained quickly, he reasoned, supply chains and labor disruptions would not have spiked prices in the first place.
Furthermore, he sees the situation healing itself and believes Biden is doing the best he can in the face of the challenges of the wars in Ukraine and now in Gaza. “People are buying, do you know why? Because they have jobs,” Ms. McDowell said. “God forbid, today or tomorrow, if I had to go look for a job, it would be easier than before.”
Ms. McDowell is what is known in public opinion studies as a high-information voter. Surveys have shown that those less likely to keep up with the news tend to change their minds when given more information about what the Biden administration has accomplished and attempted.
The Inflation Reduction Law, in force for 15 months, is still little known, For example. But last March, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that 68 percent of respondents supported it when reporting its main components.
A frequent theme in conversations with Democratic voters who see the economy as poor is that large corporations have too much power and that the middle class is being squeezed.
Millwood, Kiser’s partner, said he was concerned that society had become more unequal in recent years and didn’t see Biden doing much about it.
“From what I see, it doesn’t really seem like the working class is benefiting from a lot of things recently,” said Millwood, who supports a higher federal minimum wage and is impatient with the bickering and accusations he hears in Washington. .
After the phone conversation ended, Millwood texted to say that, upon reflection, he would also like to see Biden push to cut taxes for low-income families and make it harder for the wealthiest to avoid them. . After being sent news articles about Biden’s support for extending the now-expired Child Tax Credit and allocating $80 billion to the Internal Revenue Service, in part to go after tax evaders He seemed surprised.
“That’s absolutely what I had in mind,” Mr. Millwood texted. “There’s been so much noise in the media lately that I haven’t seen much covering things like that,” and he added, “Biden doesn’t seem so bad after all, haha.”
Ruth Igielnik contributed reports.
Audio produced by Tally Abecassis.
