The prospect of new legislative victories may not be enough to overcome the heat the White House is facing as voters level the brunt of their economic dissatisfaction on President Joe Biden in the lead-up to the November elections.
Emerging from coronavirus isolation this week, Biden cheered the Senate’s passage of a $280 billion legislation to boost the production of semiconductors in the United States, a top priority for his administration, and was greeted by a surprise reconciliation bill to address climate change, healthcare costs, and deficit reduction. The Biden administration argues that the new reconciliation bill will help fight inflation.
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But a gloomy economic report Thursday that showed a second consecutive quarter of economic decline has become a blinking-red indicator of where voters fear the country is heading.
The Biden administration has sought to reframe what is and isn’t considered a recession, arguing that the country is not facing an economic downturn despite soaring inflation and two straight quarters of contraction. The technical definition of a recession shouldn’t apply, officials said, given other strong economic indicators, such as high job growth.
Still, concerns over the economy have roiled the president’s approval numbers as Democrats face their own uphill climb ahead of the midterm elections.
With only a few months until November, strategists are divided over whether a handful of long-sought legislative wins will be enough to outgun the economic headwinds and whether blame on Biden will bode poorly for the party.
“If you don’t have six months of solid economic news, positive news, it’s hard to move around feelings about the economy,” Republican pollster Ed Goeas said.
Seventy-seven percent of voters believe the country is on the wrong track, according to the results of Georgetown University’s Battleground Civility Poll, which Goeas conducted July 17-21 alongside Democratic counterpart Celinda Lake. The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Feelings about the economy are tough to shift, Goeas said: “I think we’re going to be looking at the ‘wrong track,’ basically all the way through the fall elections.”
He said he didn’t think a reconciliation deal in the Senate or a drop in gasoline prices would suffice to turn Democrats’ prospects around before November.
“It has to be consistent, total good news on the economy, or it doesn’t work,” Goeas said.
He pointed to the recession from July 1990 to March 1991 as a driving factor in the 1992 presidential election when Democrat Bill Clinton secured a victory over incumbent President George H. W. Bush.
“By September … it was basically across the board positive economic news, but it had been dug in so deep in terms of the economy that there was no turning it around, even with two months to do it,” Goeas said.
Those concerns were reflected in the 16 months leading up to the race in a joint poll conducted by Goeas and Lake at the time.
In the wake of the latest economic data, Biden administration officials have argued that despite two straight quarters of contraction, the economy is not in a recession given the country’s strong job growth, consumer spending, private sector investment, and more.
The Battleground Civility Poll shows that job creation, in particular, does not resonate with the public in the way the Biden administration might have hoped.
“Usually, jobs is a magnet for the Democrats, but it’s a very low priority on questions about the economy today,” Goeas said. “But you see the overall economy and you see inflation through the roof. It’s gathering about 70% ‘No. 1 problem in the country.’”
Lake said that while the economic landscape might weigh Biden down, she doesn’t think it will hurt the president’s party in November.
“The good news, I think, on the economy is that the president is taking the full brunt of it,” Lake said.
A RealClearPolitics average of national polls shows Biden underwater with voters, with 38% approving of his job and 56% disapproving. The president’s support slips further over his handling of the economy, with 32% approving and 64% disapproving.
“People do expect, do want the president to do something about the economy,” Lake said.
And there are ways the White House can boost Democrats, including through efforts to lower prescription drug and healthcare costs, which the Biden administration has said will ease inflationary pressures, Lake said.
“People aren’t going to blame their individual member of Congress for inflation. They are blaming the president,” Lake said.
In the long term, the political outcome for Biden may be bleak.
Despite plummeting approval numbers, Biden said he intends to run for reelection in 2024, recently telling an Israeli television network that he “would not be disappointed” to face off against his 2020 rival, former President Donald Trump.
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But the difficulty of overcoming the economic hurdles could stymie Biden’s chances.
“Having 77% of the country saying that the country is off the wrong track is devastating numbers to any incumbent, especially if they were getting ready to run for reelection,” Goeas said. “But certainly, for that incumbent’s party going into the election, and the intensity of that, believing that the country’s off on the wrong track … it’s not going to go away easily. It’s not going to go away with messaging. It is in large part driven by the economy.”
