Democratic Enthusiasm Overlooks Economic Weakness
The surge in Democrat optimism about their prospects to retain the White House may come crashing down on the shoals of an economy widely viewed as sick and increasingly seen as veering toward a recession.
There’s no doubt that Democrats are feeling a lot more confident about Kamala Harris’s chances than they were about Biden’s. The most recent polling by YouGov for the Economist found that 81 percent of Harris supporters expect her to win in November, as do 76 percent of self-described liberals and 77 percent of people who say they are Democrats or lead toward the Democratic party.
As we detailed on Wednesday, that’s a huge increase in optimism on the part of Democrats from just a few weeks ago. In the survey taken between July 12 and 16, just 63 percent of Biden supporters expected the president to be re-elected. Among Democrats and Democrat leaners, just 55 percent thought Biden would win. Among self-described liberals, 53 percent expected him to win.
Trump supporters have gone the other way, becoming less optimistic over the past couple of weeks. In that mid-July survey, 91 percent of people who said they planned to vote for Trump also said they thought he would win. Among Republicans and Republican leaners, 86 percent said they expected Trump to win. Among conservatives, 83 percent said he would win.
In the most recent YouGov survey, taken between August 4 and August 6, the share of Trump supporters expecting a victory fell ten points to 81 percent. For Republicans and leaners, it also fell 10 points to 76 percent. For conservatives, the decline was even steeper, falling 12 points to 71 percent.
In other words, the confidence of Harris’s supporters rose and the confidence of Trump’s fell. They’re both now evenly matched in terms of confidence at 81 percent. They’re basically in a tie when it comes to the confidence of their respective parties. On ideology, liberals are slightly more confident than conservatives, which may not be surprising since there remains in America a good number of self-described conservatives who have never gotten over their personal animus against Trump.
Far More Americans Say Trump Is Better for Their Economic Fortunes
Is this vibe shift around the election justified? Polling released Thursday by CNBC from its quarterly All-America Economic Survey suggests that it is not. Trump is far ahead of Harris on the issue of the economy, which is the top issue according to a plurality of voters.
Let’s start with what might be the most important question of the election: which candidate do you think will make you better off financially? The CNBC survey found that Trump has a two-to-one lead here, with 40 percent of Americans saying they’ll be better off if Trump wins and 21 percent saying they be better off with Harris as president. Thirty-five percent say they expect it does not matter or that there will be no change in their financial situation.
There’s a big partisan gap here. Republicans are much less likely than Democrats or independents to say that it does not matter who wins. Just 17 percent of Republicans say they do not think who wins the presidency will affect their finances, compared with 54 percent of independents and 42 percent of Democrats.
This also highlights an opportunity for the Trump campaign. The majority of independents currently say they don’t think it matters for their personal finances who becomes president. But this is not because they are uninterested in economic issues. The YouGov poll found that 71 percent of independents rate the economy as a very important issue and another 27 percent say it is somewhat important. On inflation, 79 percent say it is very important and 17 percent say it is somewhat important.
Twenty-six percent of independents say inflation is their top issue, putting them closer to Republicans at 32 percent than Democrats at 15 percent. Another ten percent say jobs and the economy is their top issue, tied with Republicans, putting it as the third most popular choice among independents, after inflation and health care.
Trump is already leading among independents on the question of personal finances. Thirty-one percent say they think they’ll be better off if Trump wins, versus just 10 percent who say they’ll be better off in Harris does.
This suggests that Trump’s victory could very well turn on convincing more independents that the election really will matter for their household finances. It’s an issue they care very much about, but right now around half say they aren’t sure it makes a dime’s worth of difference who wins.
Among Republicans, 79 percent say that their financial situation will improve if Trump wins. Among Democrats, just 48 percent say they’ll be financially better off if Harris wins, versus 42 percent who say it doesn’t make a difference. That probably also bodes well for Trump’s chances of bringing independents over to seeing him as important to their economic fortunes. If Harris cannot convince the majority of Democrats she’ll be good for them financially, she’s probably not going to have much luck with independents.
When It Comes to the Economy, Harris Is Weird
Harris has a big disadvantage when it comes to campaign on the economy: she’s hamstrung by a base that doesn’t care about the economy as much as the rest of the country. While inflation is the top issue for self-described moderates and conservatives—with 27 percent and 29 percent saying it is their number one issue—among liberals it is second to climate change (17 percent) and tied with abortion and health care at 14 percent.
Vice President Kamala Harris makes a statement to the press on March 1, 2024, at the Ella West Gallery in Durham, North Carolina. (Official White House Photo by Polly Irungu via Flickr)
Similarly, ten percent of conservatives say the economy and jobs is their top issue (making it third after inflation and immigration, at 23 percent), and ten percent of moderates say the same (making it tied with health care). But among liberals, only 6 percent say jobs and the economy matter most, putting the issue behind climate change, inflation, healthcare, abortion, civil rights, and civil liberties.
In other words, liberals are weird when it comes to which issue they care about the most and are far less likely to be primarily concerned about inflation, jobs, and the economy than moderates and conservatives. As a result, Harris is likely to have trouble focusing her campaign around jobs, inflation, and the economy—even if that’s where the votes are.
There’s no doubt that Democrats are newly exuberant about Harris becoming their candidate. But her weakness on the fundamental economic issues suggests that this is irrational exuberance.