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The one number that matters in that New York Times poll
While we at the Washington Monthly continue to warn people against “Mad Poll Disease” (as coined by Michael Podhorzer, overreaction to general election trial heat polling), we are no match for the anxiety-producing powers of The New York Times.
The NYT/Siena poll from the weekend showing Donald Trump beating Joe Biden by five points, injected directly into the bloodstream of the nation’s highly educated news consumers over Sunday brunch, prompted a fresh round of panic in Democratic circles.
But there’s no reason to believe the race is over based on one poll taken eight months before Election Day.
And the NYT poll isn’t even the only one taken over the past week. There have been eight others, with results ranging from Trump up by 4 points to Biden up by a single point. The average Trump lead in the eight polls is 1.9 points. The Times poll is Trump’s best poll of the nine.
However, we should not dismiss the NYT poll outright. In fact, one data point in the poll points to a way towards a Biden comeback.
First, here’s what’s leading the Washington Monthly website:
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When the NYT pollsters asked “how would you rate economic conditions today,” 51 percent said “poor.” Only 26 percent said “excellent” or “good.”
As a Washington Monthly reader, you know this is simply not true.
Last month, Robert J. Shapiro explained: “No president since Richard Nixon has presided over average annual income gains as significant as the 4.2-percent increase in 2023 under Biden.” And last week John E. Schwarz detailed how job and wage gains have been vastly better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones, with Biden’s record just the latest example.
Once public perception of the economy catches up with the reality, Biden’s numbers should improve.
For example, in a Wall Street Journal poll released this weekend, 38 percent said the economy was either “excellent” or “good.” While that’s not a gangbusters number, it is the highest percentage in the WSJ poll in two years. And Biden narrowed Trump’s lead in that poll from 4 points to 2 since December.
Despite all the recent attention on the Middle East and the southern border, the economy remains the highest priority of voters.
In a CBS News/YouGov poll released this weekend, when asked how much various issues factored into their presidential decision, “the economy,” at 82 percent, was the only one cited as a “major factor” by four out of five voters. (Second place: “the state of democracy” at 70 percent.)
And a Fox News poll, also released this weekend, asked voters which issue will be “most important” in determining their vote. “The economy” was the clear winner at 37 percent, with “immigration” well behind at 21 percent. (“Democracy” was not a choice.)
It’s possible that the lag between stronger economic performance and stronger presidential approval will organically dissipate over the course of the year. Back in August I wrote about how Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama experienced similar lags in their first terms before eventually winning re-election.
But it’s also the case that in our highly polarized era, more voters are firmly partisan and less readily swung by economic performance.
Still, swing voters exist. And Trump and his partisans are furiously romanticizing how life was on his watch which, combined with more recent memories of high inflation, appears to be having an effect on them.
So it may be the case that improving public perception of the economy will not happen organically and will require an aggressive and creative communications strategy.
That’s why I recently recommended, in my Washington Monthly column, that Biden and his media team emulate Reagan’s uber-optimistic “Morning in America” ad campaign that warmly tells the story of Biden’s growing economy, alongside a “Nightmare in America” effort that reminds how Trump tore the country apart and turned us against each other.
Whether or not you agree with my specific prescription, what is irrefutable is that Biden is being held back by a false perception of the American economy.
Furthermore, unlike Biden’s age, perceptions of the economy can significantly change and often do over the course of a presidential campaign.
In other words, don’t assume that more than half of those polled by The New York Times will keep saying the economy is poor.
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Best,
Bill
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