The atmosphere around Vice President Kamala Harris is very good. There are memes, an increase in fundraising and an overall improvement in swing-state polling since he took the Democratic presidential ticket. In fact, the sentiment is so good that he even seems to have been able to shake off President Joe Biden’s terrible financial reputation.
Despite being part of the administration, it seems Harris is not burdened by what has been. A recent poll even found that Americans trusted him more to manage the economy than the Republican ticket, a surprising feat for the Democratic candidate. Kamala does not fully exist in the context before him. He looks around, laughs, and says, “What vibecession?”
I’m being a bit hyperbolic here, but it really is the case that Harris has a serious opportunity to reshape his financial narrative. People might not be sold on him solving all their money problems, but enough voters seem willing to consider the idea that he might be better for their pocketbook than former President Donald Trump.
Much of the conventional wisdom about elections — as Bill Clinton’s strategist Jim Carville described it during the Clinton campaign in 1992 — is, “It’s the economy, stupid.” It’s an accurate feeling; the economy typically ranks at or near the top of voters’ most pressing issues. But it’s also more complicated than it seems. When people say they’re worried about “the economy,” it can mean a lot of things—grocery prices, gas prices, housing prices, health care. This year, for some people, it was a proxy for saying that Biden was old.
Regardless of the reason behind their agitation, before Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, voters’ opinions of his economic record were one of the president’s biggest obstacles to re-election. People were angry about prices, they hated inflation, and they blamed Biden for all these problems. The White House tried to put a positive spin on it and call it all “bidenomics,” but people didn’t understand what it was saying.
Now, with Harris on the ticket, the country is changing.
A new poll conducted in early August by the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business found that more Americans trusted Harris to manage the economy than Trump, 42 percent to 41 percent. That’s a significant jump from July, when Biden was still in the race. At the time, only 35 percent of voters said they trusted the president more about the economy, compared to 41 percent who chose Trump. Not everything in the poll was roses for Harris — Trump still has the edge on trade issues with China and who people believe will leave them better off financially — but the results are a definite improvement.
“Harris has been judged remarkably independent of the Biden-Harris record,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster and president of Lake Research Partners. “They accused Biden a lot of being a kind of leader. But I think it’s a new leaf now, and people are interested in the future going forward.”
And even though it’s just one poll, the confidence Americans have in Harris is relatively unique for a Democrat. Historically, voters have generally viewed Republicans as better stewards of the economy. Biden outperformed Trump in some polls in 2020 as the pandemic caused unprecedented economic chaos, but by and large Americans believe the GOP will do better on the economy — especially when the candidate is a businessman like Trump.
But Harris has managed to turn the story upside down. A late July poll by Democratic polling firm Blueprint showed Harris and Trump tied for who voters trusted more to keep prices down and create jobs for everyone who needs them. Harris has the advantage of keeping rent and housing costs affordable, but behind Trump’s lowering of gas prices and interest rates. Blueprint also found that Harris did much better than Biden on several economic measures, including implementing economic policies that people believed would benefit them and lowering prices.
“Relative to Donald Trump, the economic policies of the Biden administration are not strongly associated with Kamala Harris in the minds of voters,” said Evan Roth Smith, lead pollster at Blueprint. Smith told me voters are on hold.
“Voters are instinctively willing to give him a chance,” he said. “They’re counting on him to be at least as good as Trump on most of these economic issues that matter to them, but he needs to help voters connect the dots on what he thinks.”
This shift in perception isn’t because the economy changed overnight – unfortunately we haven’t removed the last few years of inflation and gone back to 2019 prices. It is because people’s impressions and views are different. With Biden out of the race, many voters will simply feel better.
“At some point in the election, it’s all about the mood, right?” Morning Consult’s US policy analyst Eli Yokley said. “And if you’re a voter and you think the mood is bad — whether it’s the economy, whether it’s the age of the former Democratic presumptive nominee weighing on your mind — all of these things build on themselves and change perceptions. We’re seeing a lot of these things erode from Biden’s stance on climate change or LGBT on rights, which are the number one issues where the Democrats are always ahead, and it was moving at the same pace on the economy.
The Penta-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index, which measures Americans’ expectations about how the economy will fare, saw a big jump in the last two weeks of July, around the time Biden dropped out and Harris stepped in. When moods start to change, they change. in everything.
Whether people feel it, much of the economy is on good paper. Economic growth is strong. Inflation is slowing down, although prices remain high. Gas prices are lower. Wages have risen. Mortgage interest rates have fallen. The Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates in September, which will be welcome relief for both consumers and businesses. The labor market has remained stable, although some cracks are beginning to appear. Over time, inflation should start to slow down as people get used to prices and wage trends.
“People are still tight-lipped about how much they’re paying for things compared to a few years ago, but I think less so,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
But Biden’s ability to do this was limited. Democrats can’t reason, argue, or scream to convince people that the economy is good, or make them less angry about the real annoyance of high prices. But maybe with Harris running and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at his side, they won’t need as much at least.
First, it’s not clear that voters think Harris, as vice president, has had much input into Biden’s economic policies. A recent swing-state poll by Morning Consult asked voters what impact they thought Harris had on the economy and inflation of the Biden administration. About a third said he had a positive influence, a third said he had a negative influence, and a third said he had no influence at all or did not know.
“Voters don’t know exactly how to impeach him or how to engage him in the conversation,” Yokley said. “Just like his approval ratings, where we’ve seen improvements, he’s starting with a much emptier slate than people expect the vice president to do.”
This blank strip can be used as an advantage. Harris can talk about a clear vision and more popular policies, whether it’s controlling housing costs or supporting wealth growth or promoting entrepreneurship or creating jobs or supporting the middle class. And he doesn’t have to utter the words “inflation” or “bidenomics.”
“He has an opening because people are like, ‘OK, let’s look at a new look,'” Lake said. “It’s a race to define his financial perspective.”
Even with this opportunity, Harris has to compete with history. There is a deep partisan gap in people’s attitude towards the economy. When a Democrat is in the White House, Democratic voters say everything is great, and Republicans say everything is terrible. When a Republican is elected, it flips. As mentioned, voters often trust Republicans over Democrats, and many polls show Trump still ahead of Harris. People remember the Trump economy in a better time – interest rates were lower, prices were lower, houses looked more affordable.
“Most people don’t even know what politics is, but they certainly know how much their groceries cost,” Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster and political consultant, said. However, it is one factor among many. “You can’t say that inflation is more important than the character of Donald Trump or that inflation is more important than the abilities of Kamala Harris,” he said. “It’s apples and oranges. It’s two different concerns.”
Harris is now tasked with crafting a financial identity and agenda before others beat him to it. He ran on a pretty progressive agenda in the 2020 Democratic presidential race, but he’s changed some of his positions, so it’s not clear to what extent that’s a guide to what he’d do AS POTUS. In the California Senate, Harris proposed legislation to provide tax credits for low- and middle-income families. On the 2024 campaign trail, he’s also likely to cite his prosecutorial record as California attorney general in going after drug companies and big banks, including securing a $20 billion settlement from financial institutions during the foreclosure crisis. At a rally in Las Vegas earlier this month, Harris said he would fight for an increase in the minimum wage and advocated de-taxing service workers’ tips. The latter is a proposal already made by Trump.
Harris will likely need to present a positive message about the economy, although given the tension around him, he may not want to get too flustered. He could also probably make hits on Trump. He is proposing a series of tariffs that many economists say would raise prices even further, and he is seeking to extend the 2017 tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
“I just think the Democrats have a pretty good theory about the economy case, and I think the more people learn about Trump’s approach to the economy, the more concerned they are about it,” said former Bharat Ramamurti. Deputy Director of the National Economic Council led by Biden.
That’s not to say it’s all been smooth sailing for Harris’ campaign, financially or on any other front. The problem with a blank canvas is that anyone can paint on it, including his competition. Trump’s campaign and the GOP are trying to tie him to Biden’s negative sentiments about the economy, affordability and inflation.
But for now, voters are giving Harris the financial benefit of the doubt, or at least a chance to chart his own path. Fortunately for him, he has some distance to some context that preceded him. Financially, it’s almost like Harris falling out of a coconut tree.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent for Business Insider, covering business and economics.
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