How long does it take voters to shake off inflation? We may finally be getting an answer.
Inflation has dropped from a peak of 9% in June 2022 to just 3.1% now, and most economists think it will continue to trend lower. But that improvement hasn’t boosted President Biden’s approval ratings, which tanked as inflation worsened and have stayed stubbornly stuck in the danger zone.
The fever may now be breaking. At least four measures of Biden’s reelection odds have ticked upward recently, suggesting that voters are feeling better about the economy. Moody’s Analytics, for instance, says the latest change to its presidential election model slightly favors Biden. “A more favorable economic outlook has raised the share of the popular vote that Biden is projected to win,” the research firm said in a Feb. 23 update.
The main change in Moody’s economic outlook is a drop in its forecast for mortgage rates, likely to occur as a result of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts later this year. The firm also thinks income growth, adjusted for inflation, will be rising solidly by Election Day, normally bullish for an incumbent running for reelection.
That raises the Moody’s forecast for Biden’s vote in five key swing states by 0.18 percentage points. That’s small, but the margin of victory in each of those states—Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada—could be fraction of a point. In the Moody’s model, Georgia has moved from tossup to leaning Biden’s way. The current forecast is for a Biden electoral count victory of 308-230.
Democrats have been terrified that Biden’s age and frequent verbal stumbles will blot out the news of improving inflation, but there are other signs voters are warming to Biden. In Harvard/Harris polling, Biden’s approval rating rose from 42% in January to 45% in February. The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Biden beating former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee, by 49% to 45%. And a recent Axios poll found Biden beating Trump among younger voters by 52% to 48%, an improvement on similar polls from late last year.
These are small gains, and Biden’s approval ratings at FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics, which aggregate numerous polls, haven’t materially changed. In both, Biden’s approval rating is a weak 40% or so. That will get better if Biden’s standing improves in more individual polls. Yet Biden also continues to have distinct vulnerabilities that won’t be easy to fix.
Voters continue to give Biden the worst marks on immigration, due to the surge of migrants at the southwest border that authorities seem incapable of halting. Congress has repeatedly failed to pass legislative reforms, and Biden now seems to understand that immigration is a real threat to reelection. He’ll travel to the border soon and may try to address voter concerns by announcing executive actions to stem the flow of migrants, even if courts might overturn them.
Biden’s standing with young voters isn’t as solid as he would like, either. In 2020, Biden won young voters by a margin of about 20 percentage points, so if his margin is just 4 points now, he has a lot of lost ground to make up. Young Americans have soured on Biden because of his seeming support for Israel over displaced Palestinians, and his inability to cancel student debt for most borrowers.
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Biden clearly recognizes that danger too. He’s taking a progressively tougher stance on Israel and seeking new ways to cancel student debt since the Supreme Court blocked his plan to forgive up to $20,000 per borrower for 43 million people last year. Biden has also signed into law many environmental measures young voters favor. Either they’re not getting the message, or they’ve turned on Biden for other reasons.
What Biden has going for him, of course, is Donald Trump and his own dossier of liabilities. Trump has crushed all challengers for the Republican nomination, but is still a weak candidate. He won the recent South Carolina primary election with 60% of the vote, which means that 40% of mostly Republican voters didn’t back him. One Republican analyst called the outcome a “five alarm fire” for the GOP that reveals “the fundamental weakness of Donald Trump.”
The former president is racking up a string of political and legal losses, including a massive $454 million judgment against him for business fraud in New York. Trump still faces four criminal trials, and some voters who favor Trump say they won’t vote for him if he’s convicted of a crime. The first criminal trial starts in late March and should be concluded, with a verdict, by summer. It’s possible that a small improvement in election odds is the most either candidate can hope for in 2024.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.
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