Voters Trust Kamala Harris On 'Economy.' IT'S THE SAME ECONOMY.

Gonna die mad about this one!

If I ask the stock photo search for ‘US economy’ and it brings back a stoned doodle, who am I to question? Also, via ‘PrimerGray’ in comments: ‘The Doodle Abides.’ Photo by Rene Vincit on Unsplash

In more good polling news for Kamala Harris — who has had a lot of good polling news lately! — the latest poll from the Financial Times and the University of Michigan Ross School of Business finds that more voters trust Kamala Harris to handle the US economy than they do Donald Trump, although with 42 percent favoring Harris and 41 percent Trump, it was within the margin of error. But the narrow lead for Harris was considerably better than last month’s FT/UMRSoB poll, in which Joe Biden trailed Trump by six points on the economy (35 percent Biden, 41 percent Trump).

University of Michigan prof Erik Gordon said, “The fact that voters were more positive on Harris than on Biden  . . .  says as much about how badly Biden was doing as it does about how well Harris is doing.”

Joe Biden’s economic policy was old and uncertain on its feet, while Kamala Harris’s economic policy is a good 20 years younger and frankly a huge relief since we don’t have to worry that the economy will say “the president of Mexico” when the economy meant “the president of Egypt.”

We’re going to wear our “Just Guessing” hat here and add that the change seems to indicate that polls measure vibes far more than they measure economic conditions, but what the hell, we’ll take it.

Here is a handy chart from the poll, showing that newfound trust in Harris as a steward of the very same economy that she and Joe Biden had already been stewarding into the best post-pandemic economic recovery among the industrialized nations. No, we don’t know why people aren’t recognizing that either.

Also worth noting is that little grey line at the bottom of the graph, indicating that the percentage of respondents who said they trust “neither” Trump nor Biden-Harris on the economy fell by nearly half, from 18 percent to just 10 percent. The “double haters” are vanishing before our eyes, because those doubts about Biden’s economy are diminishing now that it’s kind of Harris’s economy.

Here’s a crazy thought: What we’re seeing here just might be Joe Biden finally getting credit for what he’s done for the economy; that credit is simply going past him to his vice president, who has been a partner in White House policy all along.

And there was more good economic news yesterday, as the monthly Consumer Price Index report showed that inflation has slowed again, to 2.9 percent on an annual basis, the lowest since 2021. That means the Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates in September, and here we are in soft landing territory (it’s an odd metaphor, since the economy never actually taxis to the gate, although it may still lose your luggage).

Harris will release an economic policy plan Friday, focused on bringing down grocery prices and other daily costs for Americans, including a call for Congress to pass a ban on price gouging. We’re looking forward to that speech!

But it’s very important that we keep in mind that the other major party candidate for president has an economic policy plan too, which he spoke about at a rally in North Carolina Wednesday. Or at least the speech was billed as “remarks on the economy.” Trump had some difficulty staying on that topic, muttering at one point that “They say [the economy] is the most important issue, I’m not sure it is, but they say it is. Inflation is the most important, but that is part of the economy.” He kept getting distracted, veering off to important economic matters like “tampons in boys’ bathrooms” and how Harris and Tim Walz are “actually beyond socialists,” which as ridiculous lies go is maybe an economics-related lie.

Here’s more of Trump discussing economic policy:

This is a little bit different day, this is, we’re talking about a thing called the economy. They wanted to do a speech on the economy. A lot of people are very devastated by what’s happened with inflation and all of the other things. So we’re doing this as an intellectual speech. You’re all intellectuals today. Today we’re doing it. We’re doing it right now.

Oh ho, you probably think the mean liberal social media video guy cut it off right before Trump laid out the substance of his speech! But nah, he just kept blathering about how we’re now a third-world nation, but just as soon as he takes office, all the prices will come down, not that he could say how.

But he did repeat one of his few concrete policy proposals, his plan to impose 10 percent tariffs on all imports, which even the Wall Street Journal acknowledges would be disastrous for inflation and the economy. But to sound super tough, Trump upped the ante, promising,

So, right here in a place called North Carolina, have you heard of it? Have you heard of it? We are going to have 10 percent to 20 percent tariffs on foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years, we are gonna charge them 10 percent to 20 percent to come in and take advantage of our country because that is what they have been doing, to take our jobs we are gonna charge them and bring back millions and millions of jobs by doing so and millions and billions of dollars.

And here is how the Washington Post described that.

Among other economic issues in the speech, Trump addressed Harris’s laugh (“That’s the laugh of a crazy person, I’ll tell you. [...] That’s the laugh of a person with some big problems”), how terrible San Francisco is solely because of Kamala Harris, and a prediction that Democrats just might replace Harris with another candidate in the 82 days between now and the election.

Still, he returned to the economy several times between rants, since it was there on the teleprompter. He explained that the only reason stocks recovered from last week’s one-day “Kamala Crash” was that everyone knows he’ll win the election and they’re happy about that; promised to cut oil and electric prices in half when he takes office (with the disclaimer that “If it doesn’t work out, you’ll say, oh well, I voted for him and he still got it down a lot”); and predicted that Harris will soon release a “fake economic plan” that’s actually a copy of Trump’s own brilliant policy.

We can only assume that’s where Trump will actually get an economic plan to campaign on, although he’d need to add in another tax cut for the rich and a rollback of everything Biden and Harris did on climate.

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[Financial Times / CNBC / Politico / Charlotte Observer (at Yahoo) / AP / WaPo]

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