The report “CBS News poll finds Biden-Trump race tight in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin” is fascinating not so much for what it tells us about the current state of play in three Rust Belt swing states but about the nature of perception in American politics.
For years, they’ve been three of the handful of states that decided presidential elections. In the summer of 2020, amid the COVID pandemic and lockdown debates, sizable majorities in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania rated state economies badly. Incumbent President Donald Trump trailed in polls, and ultimately, the three close contests were won by challenger Joe Biden.
Four years on, some things haven’t changed. We have the same two candidates locked in close — effectively even — races. And there are still negative views of the economy that now, as then, weigh on the 2024 incumbent, President Biden.
Given the views of these candidates, the summer campaign here might be an argument about who is the less bad option: both candidates elicit more feelings of worry than confidence, more insecurity than security, and plenty of anger.
So, nothing newsworthy there. But here’s where it gets interesting:
Stipulating that a poll of registered voters in 2024 isn’t by any means a perfect overlap with a 2020 exit poll of actual voters, the wild swing between people’s real-time perception of the economy versus their recollection of it less than four years later is fascinating.
With inflation looming large in their minds, most voters don’t say there’s even been improvement in their state’s economy post-pandemic: only a quarter say it has improved in the years since, with about half saying it has actually gotten worse.
I don’t have time to do a deep dives into the economic reality of these three states but it’s obviously just nonsense that things haven’t wildly improved since the end of the pandemic. And that’s true even if, like me, you don’t assign Trump much of the blame for the downturn or given Biden much of he credit for the rebound.*
And few say their own finances are better compared to before the pandemic. This may be an essential part of their memory — comparing to before the coronavirus.
I suspect this is what is going on here. In 2020, voters punished Trump for the extant reality. In 2024, they think of “The Trump Economy” as the state of play circa 2018-2019.
Amid those poor economic numbers, here’s a change that’s working against Mr. Biden: he narrowly trails Donald Trump on “understands the needs and concerns of people like you.” That means he’s losing an edge he enjoyed in the summer of 2020 when we asked voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this question.
The swing is rather considerable, with Biden down 4 points and Trump up 5 from the 2020 numbers (albeit in a survey with a 3.2 point margin). I find it baffling but, were I to hazard a guess, it’s the lack of major speeches on the economy from Biden.
The choice between Mr. Biden and Trump now predominantly draws out negative feelings like worry and anger.
Twice as many say Mr. Biden makes them feel worried as say he makes them feel either secure or confident. He trails Trump on making voters feel confident and secure.
Trump, for his part, elicits more feelings of anger, which does fuel opposition to him, helping keep Mr. Biden in these races, despite sour economic views.
That neither candidate cracks 50 in any of the good categories is more an indicator of our deep polarization than anything else. I’m not sure what to make of the sky-high “worried” reactions to both.
Back to the economy and my main takeaway:
As we’ve seen nationwide, voters today recall their state’s economy “when Donald Trump was president” quite differently from the way it was viewed back in 2020, specifically. Ratings of the economy were quite low that year. So it may well be that when they think back about the Trump years, they’re thinking back to before the pandemic. That matters a lot for how they perceive their choice of Trump and Mr. Biden now.
Thinking in retrospect about the economy under Trump while skipping over the pandemic in 2020 lends itself to a more favorable comparison with the economy now, under Mr. Biden. Moreover, many voters say their own finances today are worse than during the time before the pandemic.
And so, today we find plenty of voters want to change back: in all three states, many believe they would be financially better off with Trump back in office. Voters who feel this way are voting for him in large numbers.
Again, none of this is rational. People’s feelings are at odds with not only the economic data but their own real-time perception of the economy. But, of course, that doesn’t matter. They feel what they feel and it’s up to Biden and company to change their mind.
*Trump wildly mismanaged the crisis in all sorts of ways but the economic hit was global. Biden gets modest credit for pumping so much money into the economy, albeit quite possibly so much so that it overheated, leading to inflation and higher interest rates.
