Team Biden Is Worried about the Cost-of-Living Issue

The latest survey from Gallup features a big, honking warning light for Democrats, even when you apply the usual caveats about issue polling and single-poll results:

Fifty-three percent of Americans believe the Republican Party will do a better job of keeping the country prosperous over the next few years, whereas 39% choose the Democratic Party. . . . Republicans’ 14-percentage-point lead in public preferences for keeping the country prosperous is up from a 10-point margin last year and is its widest advantage on this measure since mid-1991.

Republicans’ edge on the economy is 52 percent to 34 percent among independents; even among self-identified Democrats, 7 percent trust Republicans more, and another 2 percent aren’t sure.

In a video tribute to Jimmy Carter over the weekend, Joe Biden declared: “The smartest thing I ever did and remember I was first senator to ever endorse you [in 1976]. . . . I just hope I can be one half the president you’ve been.” So, it’s perhaps fitting that Biden’s party is facing public mistrust on their handling of the economy not seen since the aftermath of the Carter presidency. Even Democrats are complaining that the effort to embrace the “Bidenomics” label isn’t connecting with people who don’t actually think the economy is that great right now due to the high cost of living.

Part of the disconnect is between political insiders and journalists who think Biden should get credit for the rate of inflation slowing down from its high watermarks in 2022 and 2023, and voters who are still paying much higher prices as a result. Also, a lot of Democrats just assumed that voters would accept them comparing this economy to what Biden inherited in January 2021, allowing the president to claim credit for businesses reopening and supply chains bouncing back after the pandemic. Instead, many voters are still mentally comparing things to the pre-Covid economy, a comparison that helps Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular. Is that unfair? A lot of Democrats spent 2020 insisting that Trump could have stopped the country from having a pandemic and therefore avoided shutdowns, but no country on Earth managed that, and voters are prudently not buying that argument with three years of hindsight. If anything, the Democrats’ more pro-lockdown, pro-school-shutdown, pro-vaccine-mandate posture, embraced by the Biden administration for its first year in office, has undoubtedly eroded the trust of parents and blue-collar and working-class voters that the party really had their interests at heart. And while Biden can’t be blamed for bipartisan overspending in 2020 beginning with the initial CARES Act, or for supply-side issues of production and distribution in 2020 that have had lingering inflationary effects worldwide, the reality is that his administration engaged in its own reckless overspending in 2021-22 and tried to spend vastly more than that, plus its handling of transportation and supply issues has filled nobody with confidence.

The Biden reelection team must be worried about the cost of living issue, because this morning they announced a new ad blitz:

New Biden-Harris 2024 Ad Touts Lower Costs for Middle-Class Families
“Never Left” Highlights President’s Scranton Roots and Administration’s Record Enacting Cost-Saving Agenda

Today, Biden-Harris 2024 announced a new ad spotlighting how President Biden’s historic agenda is lowering costs for America’s middle class. “Never Left” highlights President Biden’s middle class upbringing and his steadfast commitment to America’s middle class. “Never Left” marks a new creative focus of Team Biden-Harris’ historic, $25 million paid media campaign with an explicit focus on the President’s cost-saving measures in his agenda.

“Never Left” will run on national cable channels and on TV in battleground states. The buy is targeting high-reach, general election audience programming including Dancing With the Stars and Bachelor in Paradise, top-ranking NFL programming, and high-rated local and network news adjacencies. This ad is part of Team Biden-Harris’ 16-week, $25 million advertising campaign that is reaching key voters in battleground states and includes the largest and earliest investment in Hispanic and African American media for a reelection campaign in history.

“While MAGA Republicans pretend they’re fighting for America’s middle class, President Biden and Vice President Harris are actually delivering ,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Manager. “Whether it’s taking on Big Pharma to cut prescription drug costs, lowering health care premiums for millions of Americans, or reducing energy bills for American families, fighting for the middle class isn’t an empty campaign promise for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — it’s their political DNA. This ad serves as an early reminder of the choice Americans will face next year: between MAGA Republicans whose agenda would give tax handouts to the ultra-rich at the expense of working people, or Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ agenda for the middle class.”

“Never Left” will run on national cable news programming and on local evening news in battleground states: AZ – Phoenix; GA – Atlanta; MI – Detroit, Grand Rapids; Nevada – Las Vegas; NC – Raleigh; PA – Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton; WI – Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay.

Notice that, as usual, Biden and his spokespeople water down the meaning of “MAGA Republicans” by identifying MAGA with . . . traditional Reaganite economic policies. I have a hard time thinking that a lot of ordinary voters see Donald Trump’s movement as primarily a conspiracy of the rich, the educated, and the big institutions against the little man. Then there’s the ad itself:

Did you know Joe Biden was from Scranton? Can you buy eggs with that news? Literally half the ad is talking about Biden’s upbringing in the 1950s. Outside of some arguments about health insurance and the cost that prescription drugs can charge to the government, the cost-of-living message is limited to showing pictures of windmills and solar panels and promising that this will reduce energy bills. There’s nothing in here about the price of food, housing, gas, or clothing. It’s a weak message, and a sign of how Biden’s reelection campaign will depend entirely on the personality and legal troubles of Donald Trump. But if voters decide that Trump is a problem for Washington and Biden is a problem for them, even that might not work.