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Shoppers carry bags at Polaris Fashion Place mall on Black Friday, November 24, 2023 in Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Editor's note: Patrick T. Brown He is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, DC, and a former senior policy adviser to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. The opinions expressed in this article are his own. For more, see CNN Opinion.
CNN —
This month's combination of inflation and a strong jobs report will test conventional wisdom about the link between economic growth and presidential election outcomes.
Courtesy of Patrick T. Brown
Patrick T. Brown
Since 1992, political consultants have been fond of quoting strategist James Carville's quip that the most important factor in determining who will fill the next White House is “the economy.”
This month's upbeat economic data is just about everything a president could want. But the question remains: Will a strong economy be enough to pull President Joe Biden over the finish line? Or will voter concerns about Biden's age and record outweigh the question first asked by President Ronald Reagan in 1980: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
Consumer Price Index data released Wednesday showed inflation slowing in May, with prices rising 3.3% year-on-year and flat from the previous month. The figures have big political implications because the final results will be released ahead of the first presidential debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump.
This month's inflation numbers are further evidence that, while the Fed has some way to go before it waves the “Mission Accomplished” flag in its efforts to bring inflation down to its 2% target, it can at least pat itself on the back a little. After all, it wasn't all that long ago — June 2022, to be exact — that headline inflation was 9.1% year-over-year, the highest since 1981. But since then, rising interest rates and less fuel added to the fire with hefty COVID-19 stimulus have helped inflation to moderate. Since mid-2023, inflation has been hovering just above 3% — still above the Fed's target, but far from where it was at the start of the Biden administration.
A thriving job market, positive wage trends and record employment numbers for Black and Hispanic workers all point to a strong economy for most households. The U.S. economy has returned to pre-pandemic growth trends, unemployment is falling and productivity is rising relative to nearly all global competitors, making it unmatched in global terms, according to a Federal Reserve research note.
Given all this good economic news, one might wonder why so many polls show the current and former presidents with such a narrow margin of support.
First, voters have better memories than Democrats would like: No matter how much the Biden administration tries to sell inflation as the price of a quick post-COVID recovery, high inflation leaves a bad taste in the mouth, like a generic brand of Diet Coke.
High inflation has gone from being a history book event to a commonplace experience, with price tags being replaced with more expensive items every time you go to the grocery store.
Overall, prices have risen 19% since Biden took office, but average weekly wages have risen only 15% (though that latter figure is complicated by the changing composition of the workforce post-COVID-19). And the fallout continues: High interest rates are putting big-ticket items like homes and cars out of reach for many would-be buyers.
A second, more mundane reason may be that while voters vote with their purse strings, there is more to a presidential vote than whether or not people are better off financially than they were four years ago.
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With a series of foreign policy crises in which the White House appears to be heading in the wrong direction — the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, and China's repeated military bluffing — some voters may be nostalgic for the tough rhetoric and pragmatic, if some would say cynical, deal-making of Trump's presidency.
All of this, plus the fact that Biden would be the oldest president in history if re-elected, and the sometimes exaggerated but undeniable sense that his momentum has waned since his time as vice president, suggests that the Biden team cannot do their job by pointing only to the good times.
Trump's actions after the 2020 election and the lingering aftermath of the Dobbs ruling may be the White House's two strongest campaign weapons to mobilize left-leaning voters. But for the apolitical, “the economy, idiot” may be the deciding factor. It's clear that voters will not forget the high-inflation environment of 2021 and 2022. But whether they forgive them may determine who wins the White House in November.
