It's not the economy, stupid: Why Kamala Harris should focus on everything else

When Kamala Harris sat down for her first interview since Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign, the initial subject she chose to discuss was her economic agenda.

When Donald Trump made his semi-triumphant return to Twitter/X, his opening tweet posed a very Reagan-esque question to the online masses: “Are you better off now than when I was president?”

Only one of those decisions made for good political strategy.

Trump’s message was no accident. The rest of the tweet mentioned only two issues, the economy and immigration, but the economy came first, and for good reason. Not only do voters consistently rate it as their most important concern in the 2024 presidential race (and often select inflation as the second-most important when that's offered as a separate category), but Trump holds a significant lead when respondents are asked about the subject.

Trump has maintained his advantage even as Harris has sparked dramatic swings in other areas. The latest ABC/Washington Post/Ipsos poll highlights an enormous turnaround on the question of which candidate has the physical health to serve as president, for example, with Harris enjoying a 56 to 26 percent advantage just one month after the July edition of the same poll had Trump leading Biden by 44 to 13 percent. Harris has erased Trump’s previous 34-point margin with regard to “strong enthusiasm” among supporters, with both sides now sporting a dead-even 60% mark. And the sitting vice president has taken a 15-point lead among independent voters, whereas Trump led Biden by four points in July.

Yet when it comes to economic matters, all the momentum in the world apparently means nothing. Last month, the ABC/Post/Ipsos poll showed Trump ahead by 10 points among voters who were asked which candidate they trusted more to handle the economy. After the historic surge of energy, fundraising and viral memes that Harris’ nomination has generated, that same gap is down to … nine points. The most recent Bloomberg/Morning Consult results give Trump an eight-point edge on the question, while the New York Times/Siena College swing-state survey puts the figure at 12 points, the same number found by CNBC.

CNBC’s poll is especially interesting because the raw data includes a running question that respondents have been asked periodically since all the way back in 2002: “How would you rate the current state of the economy? Would you say it is excellent, good, only fair, or poor?” Over the entire history of the series, the highest combined “excellent” and “good” numbers, by far, came from the days of the Trump administration. Aside from a single outlier in March of 2005 (nearly the peak of the pre-2008 housing bubble mania), the very first time that “excellent/good” cracked 38% of respondents also happened to be the first time that CNBC asked the question after Trump took office. The figure continued to rise, breaking the previously-untouched 40% mark in September of 2017, topping 50% in December of that same year and never dipping below 47% until the COVID lockdowns began. The highest “excellent/good” number during Biden’s tenure has been 34%, and that was the first time the question was asked after he took office. Since then, that proportion has gone in the opposite direction from its path in the Trump era, staying at or below 20% from October of 2021 to December of 2023, and coming in at 21% as of this month. 

In other words, regardless of whatever economic statistics Harris or Biden or any other Democrat might throw out there, CNBC’s records strongly imply that no amount of attempted persuasion will convince voters that they feel better about the economy now than they did during the Trump administration — because, well, they don’t. It’s not even close. A nugget from yet another survey, the Swing State Project’s Battleground Poll, further illustrates the problem Harris faces: According to the August results, 57% of those asked about inflation felt that it was getting worse, more than double the 25% who felt it was getting better. This is despite the fact that, officially, inflation has been trending downward since July of 2022. 

Moreover, real-time economic conditions (other than inflation) for the country appear to be deteriorating just as the campaign enters its most intense phase. The unemployment rate is on the rise, the U.S. just added the second-fewest jobs in a month since the middle of the pandemic (the worst month came just three months earlier), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics has announced that it is revising job-growth numbers downward, for the year leading up to March 2024, by nearly one million. The affordability crisis continues unabated. The Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates not once, not twice but three times before the end of the year. 

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When it comes to talking about the economy, less is certainly more for Harris and the Democrats. (Especially since she may not have policy proposals that anybody likes.) Conversely, more is more for Trump, and he has a seemingly infinite supply of “more.” His campaign team will undoubtedly try to get him to bring up economic issues as frequently as possible during the many, many multi-hour speeches he’ll be giving between now and Nov. 5. And while he will, just as undoubtedly, veer wildly off-topic more often than not, the same cannot be said for the massive waves of ads that his campaign and multiple pro-Trump super PACs will unleash in the final months of the race.

Remember, the 2020 election was ultimately decided by roughly 44,000 votes in three states. This year’s election will also, in all likelihood, be decided by a tiny handful of votes in a small number of states. If voters in those states are thinking about the economy when casting their ballots, Trump will win. If Harris can get them to think about virtually anything else (other than immigration), she’ll win.

In 1992, during Bill Clinton’s winning effort against George H.W. Bush, “It’s the economy, stupid” was the best advice a Democratic campaign could follow. In 2024, it’s the best way for the latest Democratic nominee to lose.