Biden and his great electoral challenge: that the strength of the economy becomes votes

If the statistic were true that no American president after the Second World War (1939-1945) has lost an election when the economy is buoyant, Joe Biden would have everything to win in November: the stock market at historic highs, the Gross Product Internal Revenue (GDP) far from recession, inflation falling and unemployment at a minimum.

However, today the polls not only show former Republican President Donald Trump (2017-2021) as the winner, but also paint a different reality than what the numbers describe: citizens are worried about the economy and high prices. .

Why hasn’t the economic strength, which the Democrats and Biden himself raise in every public event, completely permeated the population? Boston University Communication professor Tammy R. Vigil sees it clearly: “Democrats are traditionally very bad at messaging, particularly when it comes to certain achievements and very specifically when it comes to the economy.”, he tells EFE.

And the Republicans, explains economist Harry M. Kaiser, a professor at Cornell University, “They have done an excellent job of convincing people, supported by conservative media, that the economy is bad, that crime rates have increased, and that the United States is in a terrible situation.”, he explains to EFE.

“The fact that the Administration is not getting much credit for economic measures is quite surprising, since normally a good economy strongly favors the current Administration in general elections“, Add.

Is the US economy that strong?

But is the US economy as buoyant as Biden says? In Kaiser’s opinion, it is “in good shape”: “the unemployment rate is very low (3.9%), inflation (3.4% in April) is falling and real incomes are rising significantly faster than the inflation rate”.

As for the markets, last week the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassed the 40,000 point barrier for the first time in its history.

So, a priori, everything would seem to indicate that in the United States – already far from recession and with GDP growth in the first quarter of 1.6% (annualized rate) – the economy is doing well, although citizens do not fully perceive it. .

And it exists, as the Nobel Prize winner in Economics Paul Krugman called it in a recent article in The New York Times, “a disconnection” between “perceptions of the economy” and “what people see in their own lives”, he noted in the text.

“Although most Americans have a negative view of the economy, as expressed in polls, in their own financial circumstances most Americans feel relatively positive about their own finances.”, stated Krugman, who highlighted that surveys always focus on talking about the general economy and less about personal circumstances.

Therefore, the Democrats have ahead of them the “political challenge” to overcome the “false narrative that the economy is doing badly,” said the economist.

The day-to-day economy

Although the macroeconomic figures support Biden’s vision, there is also a detail that affects the notion that citizens have about the economy, the undeniable fact that – despite the fact that inflation is decreasing – certain everyday things are much more expensive. than before and they are not going to go down.

“There are certain things that are very expensive, like restaurants and food, things that affect people’s daily lives.” explains Boston University Economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff to EFE.

People, he adds, get upset when “He goes to a restaurant and pays $30 for a sandwich, which is equivalent to an hour of work.“, it states.

Just as no president who has run for re-election has lost at the polls when the economy was strong, none has managed to win if there had been a recession in the previous two years.

One more example that, recalls Stanford University Political Science professor Brandice Canes-Wrone, the economy “is traditionally an important factor” and decisive at the polls.

Thus, “The next few months will be critical” and Democrats have the challenge of convincing people that “a turn has been taken” and that inflation also “It is stabilizing.”

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