Suddenly, It’s Not The Economy Anymore

Created
Sat, 12/10/2024 - 04:30
Updated
Sat, 12/10/2024 - 04:30
Are people talking about it much? Not really. But the good news does seem to have caught up with some voters at least. Cathrine Rampell at the Washington Post writes: How good is the U.S. economy these days? So good that Republicans are pretending the numbers are fake. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has long held a lead over his Democratic rival on economic issues, but lately the gap has narrowed. In the spring, when President Joe Biden was still on the ticket, Trump held a roughly 12-point edge on the economy. Today, Trump remains ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris, but she’s cut that margin in half. Some recent surveys have even found the candidates in a dead heat on economic issues. A recent Cook Political Report poll of swing state voters, for instance, found Trump’s advantage on “inflation and the cost of living” had evaporated completely. This is remarkable. For most of the past decade, voters overwhelmingly trusted Republicans more on economic issues. They’ve been bummed about the economy during the Biden-Harris administration, often citing the economy or inflation as their top issue. So how has Harris narrowed the gap? Trump probably hasn’t helped his case by pitching ever-higher global tariffs, which would probably be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Independent economic analyses have also found that the rest of his agenda (mass deportations, politicizing the Federal Reserve, etc.) would probably worsen inflation and depress growth. The downstream consequences of these policies are not always intuitive, however, so they might not have influenced voters’ perceptions of Trump’s economic agenda all that much.…