Despite the push by President Biden to rebrand “Bidenomics” in a positive light, Americans aren’t convinced.
The kicker here is that Democrats pay rent and buy milk as well, and they’re not blind to the way prices have skyrocketed during the Biden administration. As USAToday reports, the margin of distrust for Biden on the economy is growing, and former President Donald Trump is the main beneficiary:
The poll, a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults by mobile and landline phones from Sept. 6 – 11, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Interviews of poll respondents by USA TODAY underscored a nation deeply worried about the economic future.
Americans’ anxieties present a major challenge to Biden’s reelection bid. Although Democrats overcame similar concerns over inflation to exceed expectations in the 2022 midterm elections, the economy is typically a defining issue in presidential races.
More Americans said they trust Trump, the 2024 Republican primary front-runner, than Biden to improve the economy by a 47%-36% margin. The spread is 46%-26% in Trump’s favor among independent voters.
Trump’s now an 11-point favorite on the question of which candidate is better trusted to handle the economy. That’s not too surprising considering the number of memes floating around hearkening back to the days of $1.97 gas under the Trump administration and a sense that America’s best days were ahead of her.
Juxtapose those days with today where headlines abound about America being more and more dependent on foreign oil as Saudi Arabia announces continued cuts in production. Biden has put the country on a weak financial footing and left us groveling to Venezuela for help, a sad position to be in considering the United States is sitting on more oil in the ground than most of the Middle East combined.
The concern crosses partisan lines at this point with just over one-third of Democrats admitting their economic anxieties in public:
Nearly all Republicans surveyed expressed pessimism about the economy, according to the poll: 96% said it is getting worse, not better. But 76% of independents and even 34% of Democrats also said the economy is getting worse.
“Things are more precarious than they’ve ever been, at least in my lifetime,” said Roshaun Harris, 38, a social justice and environmental activist from Detroit whose rent for his townhome has nearly doubled from $900 to $1,650 a month.
At the heart of Biden’s failure is the total disconnect between reality for millions of Americans and the sheltered life lived by Joe Biden as he’s ferried between the White House and his Delaware compound every weekend:
Directly below food prices as the main financial toll on families, 16% of Americans said housing costs are the biggest contributor to their rising costs of living, followed by utility bills and gas prices, each cited by 11% of Americans.
The poll’s findings expose a major disconnect between the way Biden describes the economy and how a majority of Americans feel about it.
“We’re replacing trickle-down economics with what everyone on Wall Street is referring to these days as ‘Bidenomics,'” Biden said in remarks on Labor Day in Philadelphia. “And guess what? It’s working.”
Concerns over the most basic necessities such as food, housing, and utility bills have put Democrats on defense heading into next year. An often repeated phrase from James Carville, “the economy, stupid,” is just as applicable in 2023 as it was in 1992.
The bottom line for Bidenomics is that few – not even Democrats – have anything good to say about Biden’s economy:
But 74% of Americans described the economy negatively in one word ? either “horrible/terrible,” “bad/poor,” “struggling” or “chaotic” ? compared with 18% who said the economy is “excellent/good” or “growing/improving.” Another 4% said the economy is “fair/average.”
With the economic writing on the wall, watch for the pivot back to cultural issues such as abortion to be the mainstay for Democrats in 2024.
