Donald Trump is now seeing a glimmer of hope on the battered US economy which once looked like being an albatross around his neck in the coming election.
Certainly, the US economy will be far from healthy when voters go to the poll on November 3. But elections are all about what voters perceive, and if the economy is clearly on the upswing, even from a low base, then voters may not punish Trump as much as the raw figures might suggest.
The White House is hugely excited by the news at the weekend that unemployment fell to 8.4 per cent from 10.2 per cent in August. This is down from the peak in April of 14.7 per cent, meaning that around half of the jobs lost in this coronavirus-inducted economic collapse have now been restored.
These were “Great Job Numbers,” Trump tweeted, adding that they were “much better than expected” and that the unemployment rate had fallen below 10 per cent “faster and deeper than thought possible.”
Our Economy and Jobs are doing really well. Next Year will be a Record Setter. Stay Tuned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2020
Many economists have been surprised that the economy has come back as much as it has in such a short time. The comeback on Wall St has also surprised many.
There is still a hard road ahead. The US economy is still in a deep recession and around 14 million Americans are out of work. Many of those jobs lost are not coming back. Ordinarily, a US president would not be re-elected with an economy like this.
But the coronavirus pandemic has rewritten the rules, the biggest one being that most Americans do not blame Trump for the economic downturn – they blame the virus.
Importantly for Trump, the only aspect of polling in which he consistently beats his opponent Joe Biden, is on the question of who voters trust more to manage the US economic recovery.
Recent polls in the key swing states of Pennsylvania and Florida found Trump enjoyed a lead of 7 points and 13 points respectively on the question of who would do a better job handling the economy.
The attitude of many voters is that the economy was humming under Trump before the pandemic, so he is best placed to restore its health once the pandemic recedes.
“Economic momentum is a huge asset to Trump in terms of his campaign message, which is that he’s the better candidate to lead us out of this economic crisis,” says conservative economist and Trump adviser Stephen Moore. “Trump can win the election if people are feeling more confident about the direction of the economy. The question is if we can keep this positive trend going for the next two months.”
The former economic adviser to Barack Obama, Jason Furman puts it in perspective.
“The unemployment rate has moved quickly from historically horrible to merely bad,’ he told the Washington Post. “From one perspective, that is an impressive rapid improvement, faster than I would have expected. From another perspective, that is still bad.”
And that is the key question – will voters punish Trump on November 3 because the economy will still be sick, or will they look ahead and vote for the candidate they think will get them out of it more quickly?
Biden says any notion of an economic recovery is a mirage to most American workers.
“Talk to a lot of real working people,” says Biden. “Ask them, do they feel like they’re being left behind? Ask them how they feel about the economy coming back.”
Biden does not accept that the economic collapse, which occurred after coronavirus-related shutdowns, was not Trump’s fault.
Biden argues that Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, when he played down the virus and then tried to force the economy to reopen too soon, has contributed to the economic pain, making the downturn deeper and longer that was necessary.
“It didn’t have to be this bad to begin with if the president just did his job,’ says Biden.
Polls show that the pandemic and the economy are the two most important issues with US voters. Voters have already judged Trump a loser on the pandemic, with two in three disapproving of his handling of the virus as it continues to claim almost 1000 lives a day. But the economy may not be the doom and gloom story that the Republicans once feared. If unemployment keeps ticking downwards on its current trend in the coming months, Trump’s prospects for re-election will look much healthier.
(Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia)
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