Joe McConnell
Getty ImagesAfter nearly a year away from the platform, Donald Trump returned to X this week and asked his 89 million followers, “Are you better off now than you were when I was president?”
It was a clear reference to Ronald Reagan’s famous quote during his victorious 1980 presidential campaign, when he asked: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
This message is not surprising. It seems like an obvious strategy for Trump to focus on the economy.
That’s because polls consistently suggest that it’s the issue that most matters to American voters. One such poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov in recent days listed “inflation/prices” and “jobs and the economy” among voters’ top concerns.
Perhaps even more importantly, polls indicate that voters are deeply dissatisfied with the current situation.
It seems like the perfect situation for any presidential candidate.
But in an election transformed by Joe Biden’s successor, Kamala Harris, as the Democratic nominee, Trump appears to be having trouble getting his simple message on the economy across.
It’s been less than a month since he took the stage at the Republican National Convention, looking unbeatable, having survived an assassination attempt and leading high in the opinion polls.
Now, he has lost that edge and appears to have lost his way. Meanwhile, in the opposition corner, Ms Harris is riding a wave of excitement and enthusiasm that she is finding hard to counter.
The easiest way to burst her bubble would be to remind voters how unhappy they are with high prices and blame her for the inflation that has driven up the cost of living during her time in the White House with President Biden.
One reason Trump is failing to get this message across is Harris’s campaign strategy of placing proposals aimed at reducing the cost of living at the center of her speech.
In a speech in North Carolina on Friday, Ms. Harris promised to expand child tax credits, help people buy their first home and encourage the construction of more affordable housing.
He also said he hoped to address the problem of persistently high food and grocery prices by banning “price speculation,” or excessive corporate profiteering.
“By any measure, our economy is the strongest in the world,” he said. “Many Americans are not yet feeling that progress in their daily lives.”
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris should be able to boast some very good economic indicators. There is strong growth, record levels of job creation, and this week the inflation rate fell below 3% for the first time during Mr Biden’s presidency.
But because prices are still high, voters do not feel any better. Voters do not care about the inflation rate, but about the price level.
“A central banker wants inflation back on target. A buyer wants its old price back,” Jared Bernstein, chairman of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in a July speech.
When it comes to the economy, “the vibes are off.”
“Vibrations are important,” Bernstein said.
Will bad economic vibes hurt Harris’ campaign?
That’s the question I posed to voters over lunch at a crab stand on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay.
Jeff Tester, who works at a nearby marina, says the high prices are really hurting him.
“They pay me by the hour. I get up and go to work every day. I think you have to do this to achieve the American dream,” he said. “But I just know it’s getting harder.”
And he is very clear about who he sees as responsible. “I blame the Democrats. I think their policies are hurting the working man,” he said.
Every client I met complained about inflation, but not all of them held Mr. Biden or Ms. Harris responsible.
Dan Nardo, a retired boat salesman, said he believes the pandemic, oil prices, foreign wars and supply chain problems have more to do with rising prices than the U.S. president.
His friend Randy Turk, a retired lawyer, told me that he thinks a new administration is likely to follow a similar path to try to reduce inflation, regardless of who wins.
“It’s not like a different president is going to make that big of a difference,” he said.
Ms. Harris has struggled to gain visibility and media coverage for most of her time as vice president. Previously, that was seen as a weakness. But if it means she can emerge untouched by “Bidenomics,” it could be one of her greatest strengths.
Ruth Igielnik, the New York Times’ polling director, says her latest data suggests that “voters have largely linked their negative feelings about the economy to Joe Biden.”
Speaking to me on the BBC’s Americast podcast, he explained that in his polls, Trump is still the favorite on the economy, but where he once had an 18-point lead over Biden, he now only leads Harris by about 8 points.
“That makes me think that voters don’t necessarily attribute their feelings about the economy to her,” he said.
A separate poll conducted this week for the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business found that Harris has a slim lead over Trump on who Americans think can manage the economy.
No wonder Republicans are publicly pleading with Trump to focus on the issues, particularly the economy, and stop launching personal attacks against Ms. Harris.
In a speech this week, Trump told supporters he would talk about the economy, but struggled to stay on topic.
“They say this is the most important issue,” he said, referring to his advisers and strategists who believe this is his strongest line of attack.
“I’m not sure. But they say it’s the most important,” he added, before going on to list immigration, crime and the way Ms. Harris laughs as the top issues. You could practically hear his campaign staff tearing their hair out.
“Voters don’t care about personalities or who attracts the most people,” said Matt Terrill, former chief of staff for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign.
“Independent, swing and undecided voters in key states care about the economy and inflation, so just focus on those core issues,” he said.
“Focus on talking about how you’re going to make Americans’ lives better over the next four years.”
It was in 1992 that Democrat Jim Carville coined the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” while working on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.
It’s advice every campaign since has clung to. But Trump, this time, seems to be finding it unusually difficult to stick to.
It should be a victory for him. After all, according to the Financial Times poll, in response to his question “Are you better off now than when I was president?”, only 19% of voters said yes.
