WASHINGTON — Throughout the election season, Republican Donald Trump has consistently outpaced Democrat Kamala Harris on the issue voters said they cared about most: the economy.
Trump, the former Manhattan real estate mogul turned reality TV personality, has broadened his base of support this election by appealing to the wallet concerns of Americans fatigued by higher prices and higher interest rates, national exit polls show .
“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Trump asked at rally after rally in the weeks leading up to the election.
According to the exit polls, the answer from a majority of voters was ‘No’.
SOME NEWS DAY FOUND
- National exit polls showed this to be the case that President-elect Donald Trump has broadened his base of support this election by appealing to the wallet woes of Americans fatigued by higher prices and higher interest rates.
- Sixty-seven percent of voters Those surveyed had a negative view of the economy, with 45% saying their financial situation was “worse now” than four years ago, according to Edison Research’s exit poll.
- Improving recent data has achieved little to address voters’ concerns after inflation rose to 9.1% in June 2022. That rate has since fallen 2.4%, but prices remain higher than before the pandemic.
Sixty-seven percent of voters surveyed had a negative opinion of the economy, and 45% said their financial situation was “worse now” than four years ago, according to the exit poll from Edison Research, which conducts the survey on behalf of a consortium of U.S. media outlets .
Four years ago, Joe Biden was elected president as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the global economy – the US unemployment rate was 6.4% in January 2021 when he was sworn in, shortages in the global supply chain had an impact on U.S. manufacturing, and some companies closed or scaled back as consumers stayed home.
As Biden prepares to leave office, unemployment has fallen to 4.1% and average hourly wages have risen 22.3% since the pandemic began in February 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But that data failed to allay voters’ concerns after inflation rose to 9.1% in June 2022. That rate has since fallen 2.4%, but prices remain higher than before the pandemic and interest rate hikes have made it more expensive to borrow.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food is now 26% more expensive than before the pandemic, and a new car will cost 20% more on average.
“What political scientists often find is that what people feel at the end of the first quarter of an election year is actually what they are thinking about as they go to the polls,” Richard Himelfarb, a professor of political science at Hofstra University, told Newsday . “So the fact that inflation has fallen… is not really relevant. The damage was already done.”
Harris’ competing messages
Harris billed herself as a “middle-class kid” who was sensitive to the needs of working Americans, but her economic messages also competed with her argument that Trump was a threat to democracy, an argument that Democrats made in the wake of her loss have since recognized. little to convince voters worried about the post-pandemic economy.
Exit polls showed that 32% of voters see the economy as the most important issue influencing their vote, followed by 14% citing abortion and 11% immigration. The state of democracy comes first at 34%, but political scientists have said the issue has taken on different meanings for voters in both parties: for Democrats, this has meant viewing Trump as a threat to democracy; for Republicans it meant growing distrust in government institutions.
“The main challenge for Democrats was to make it a referendum on Donald Trump and not a referendum on the economy. The problem with that strategic imperative is that it ignores the economy, which was the overwhelming problem for voters,” the former prime minister said. Long Island Congressman Steve Israel, a Huntington Democrat who is now director of Cornell University’s Institute of Politics and Global Affairs.
Israel, which advised Biden’s 2020 campaign and chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for four years, said that while Harris and Democrats tried to “litigate a menu of important issues, including abortion and democracy,” voters continued to indicate that their economic woes were the main problem.
“When citizens feel that their economic security is at risk, they are more willing to ignore their rights in democracy,” Israel said. “For them it is not an extension of their rights, it is economic survival. So the democratic issue may fall short.”
During his campaign, Harris seized on Trump’s promises to go after political opponents he called “enemies within,” portraying him as “someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with resentment and bent on unchecked power.’
The focus on Trump may have played a role in his victory, said Republican campaign strategist Michael Dawidziak of Bayport, who previously served as a campaign adviser to the late President George HW Bush.
“She made the same mistake that almost everyone who has ever fought against Donald Trump has made, whether it was his main challengers in the past, or Hillary (Clinton), they all made the same mistake – they spend more time talking about him then talking about him. talk about himself, and that elevates him in importance in the minds of people. It makes him the most important person in the room,” Dawidziak said.
How Trump won on the economy
Despite the swirl of controversy surrounding Trump — a criminal conviction stemming from his 2016 campaign, a pair of federal charges over his handling of classified documents and his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — he has benefited from a Biden presidency that the race with low approval ratings.
Harris, who had a shortened three-month window to run her campaign after Biden withdrew in July, failed to distance herself from a president whose exit polls show a majority of voters disapproved. Exit polls showed 58% of voters surveyed disapproved of Biden’s job performance, compared to 41% who said they approved.
The disapproval numbers came as economic indicators point to low unemployment, a drop in inflation and a record stock market — but those numbers failed to assuage voters’ unease over prices rising in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and high borrowing costs. when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to ease inflation.
“Trump articulated much better that he would be better for the economy,” Dawidziak said.
Over the course of the campaign, Trump unveiled a series of proposals aimed at working Americans, including a proposal to exempt tips from income taxes, a proposal to exempt overtime earnings from income taxes and a pledge to lower auto insurance rates.
He has also called for tariffs on all imported goods and a revival of the 2017 tax plan that cut corporate taxes, an agenda that several economists say could lead to inflationary pressure on the economy and a rise in the national deficit.
A Goldman Sachs analysis published in early September estimated that Trump’s tariff plan would increase inflation by 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points, and a report from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business predicted that the series of campaign proposals of Trump could increase the national deficit by $5.8 trillion. over a ten-year period, from 2025 to 2034.
Trump’s campaign claimed in an earlier statement in response to the critical economic reports that “Trump’s policies are boosting growth, reducing inflation and inspiring American manufacturing.”
With Republicans gaining control of the Senate and on track to gain a majority in the House of Representatives, Trump is likely to win broad support in both chambers to push through his economic agenda, although he may face some setbacks get, said William G. Gale, co-director of the Republican Party. nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and former senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers under HW Bush.
“Trump has promised so much to so many people on the tax front that it’s hard to know exactly what to expect,” Gale told Newsday. “Especially to the extent that Congress or the administration wants to keep the deficit under control and therefore would have to pay for the tax cuts through increases in other taxes or spending cuts.”
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is a White House correspondent who has previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
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