FT-Michigan Ross poll underlines president’s struggle to overcome impact of inflation on voters’ economic outlook
Only 14 per cent of American voters believe they are better off financially now than when Joe Biden took office, in the latest sign that the president’s economic record could undermine his re-election prospects.
A poll found that almost 70 per cent of voters thought Biden’s economic policies had either hurt the US economy or had no impact, including 33 per cent who said they believed the president’s policies had “hurt the economy a lot”. Only 26 per cent said his policies had helped.
The new monthly poll conducted for the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business will seek to track how economic sentiment affects the race for the White House. In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan famously asked voters whether they were better off than they were four years earlier, setting the stage for his landslide victory over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter.
A similar poll conducted for the FT four years ago showed that most Americans felt they had not improved their financial position under then-president Donald Trump, but their pessimism was far less pronounced. In November 2019, only 35 per cent of voters believed they were better off under Trump, while 31 per cent said they were worse off.
The new poll results showed that inflation continues to cloud the Biden campaign’s efforts to convince voters of “Bidenomics”, the president’s strategy to rejuvenate the country’s industrial sector and reverse years of middle-class wage stagnation.
Asked what was the source of their biggest financial stress, 82 per cent of respondents said price increases. Three-quarters of respondents said rising prices posed the most significant threat to the US economy in the next six months.
“Every group — Democrats, Republicans and independents — list rising prices as by far the biggest economic threat . . . and the biggest source of financial stress,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at Michigan’s Ross School. “That is bad news for Biden, and the more so considering how little he can do to reverse the perception of prices before election day.”
By Lauren Fedor, Eva Xiao and Oliver Roeder
