For the first time this year, President Joe Biden leads former President Donald Trump, a marked shift since May. It comes on the back of improving economic sentiment.
As a recent Fox News poll shows Biden leading Trump in a head-to-head, 50 percent to 48 percent, a 3-point shift since May. This improvement coincides with nearly one-third (32 percent) of voters that say the economy is in excellent or good shape. This is still low, but it is the highest score of Biden’s term.
Compared to last June, Americans are 5 points more likely to say they are getting ahead or holding steady financially.
Biden’s improved poll numbers coinciding with improving economic sentiment is no coincidence. As we have said in these pages before, this election will be decided on the issues, not abstract questions such as whether Donald Trump poses a genuine threat to democracy, an attack that has lost its salience amid concerns over kitchen-table issues.
Indeed, it should be clear that Biden’s chances of solidifying his improving poll numbers are intrinsically linked to how voters feel about the economy. Ahead of Thursday’s debate in Atlanta, Biden must continue communicating the strength of the economy, how his policies have helped everyday Americans and how he’ll continue working to improve the economy in a second term.
Trump, on the other hand, has the opposite task during Thursday’s debate. The former president must make the case that inflation is still running rampant, the southern border is still open and America is still at risk overseas.
Put another way, Biden will need to present an optimistic case, showing that he is making inroads on the economy and immigration, whereas Trump needs to do the opposite. The former president must present the situation as continuing to worsen under Biden.
To that end, it is no secret that the one issue that will matter more than any other is the economy, particularly with independents, where Biden saw the greatest improvement per the Fox poll. There was an 11-point change in this critical voting bloc since May, with Trump’s two-point lead swinging to a 9-point Biden lead in this latest survey.
And, as we’ve seen in past elections, as economic sentiment improves, so do the chances that the incumbent president — or incumbent party — will be reelected to the White House. According to the Fox poll, this is what is happening.
Zooming out, this is the continuation of a much longer trend that Biden desperately needs to continue if he wants to beat Trump. Economic sentiment has improved 31 percent since June of 2022, when inflation peaked at four-decade highs, a point Biden is likely to make during the debate.
Such improvement has no doubt benefited the president, especially as more than one-third (35 percent) of voters rate the economy or inflation as their top concern this election cycle, 24 percent more than any other singular issue, according to the latest Economist/YouGov poll.
However, Biden’s balancing act will be tricky. The president must also use Thursday’s performance to assuage voter’s concerns about his age. On top of portraying vigor and stamina, Biden must also appear empathetic and convey he understands the toll inflation is taking on American families and present a plan to fix it.
This balancing act, if done correctly, will provide a favorable contrast for Biden against his opponent.
Moreover, the president must also make up ground on the issues Trump has a distinct advantage on, most notably immigration. Per Fox News, voters rank immigration as Trump’s strongest issue and Biden’s weakest issue by a margin of 9 points, 53 percent to 44 percent.
Biden must tout his recent action to secure the Southern border by capping the number of border crossings when rates exceed our nation’s capacity. While the administration’s actions may be too little, too late, there is still time for Democrats to make inroads on the subject before November.
With that in mind, Biden must use the debate to convince voters that his action on the border was not a political ploy to appease concerned moderates, but a response to House Republicans’ failure to take meaningful action on legislation.
For his part, Trump must do everything he can to appear presidential, while reminding voters of the pain inflation is taking and dangers of uncontrolled immigration. In other words, Trump will want to paint a dark and ominous picture of current conditions in the country that only he can fix.
If properly prepared, Trump will lay out his vision for the country, providing concrete ideas on how he will fix the economy, border and foreign policy which have fallen into utter chaos under Biden, making the case that things have only gotten worse in the last four years.
In the end, economic sentiment can be volatile, but if Biden wants to build on the recent uptick in optimism, he must stress that he has real solutions to fix the current issues. The president will want to communicate that he understands their pain, even if the macro-economy is, by all measures, far stronger than the rest of the world.
Whether Biden’s “morning in America” approach will outshine Trump’s doom and gloom angle remains to be seen. But one thing we can say is that Biden is clearly seeing modest improvement on the back of renewed economic optimism, and if he wants a second term, he must double down on his economic plans and give Americans hope that the next four years will see inflation vanquished, unemployment remain low and the general cost of living reduced.
Douglas E. Schoen and Carly Cooperman are pollsters and partners with the public opinion company Schoen Cooperman Research based in New York. They are co-authors of the book, “America: Unite or Die.”
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