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IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY — By now, the basic parameters of the 2024 race for the White House have been set.
Both major candidates are well known to voters, who in general don’t like them very much. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have been accused by their opponents of being unable to string the simplest of sentences together. Voters remain the most concerned about Biden’s age and Trump’s temperament.
But even though Americans are convinced they know these two candidates like the back of their hand, over 70 percent of voters say that they plan to tune in this evening to the first presidential debate — which has historically been the most watched of the cycle. So, what’s new that they can learn, even after Trump and Biden’s decades in the limelight, and two debates four years ago?
The policy area in which we might see the most surprises is on the economy. Voters generally rank the economy and inflation as their two top issues, and unlike other topics in which we’re sure to hear rote lines of attack, there’s some legitimate mystery as to how each candidate will spin their own record.
The economy is a current weakness for Biden, with more voters trusting Trump by double digits. And with his Bidenomics tour not exactly selling out arenas, the Biden campaign has often highlighted other areas of his record as central parts of his pitch to Americans to give him four more years.
So how he fends off attacks from Trump on inflation and the economy, which are sure to come in droves, is an open question. As POLITICO’s Adam Cancryn and Josh Sisco reported today, a host of progressive Democrats and allies of the White House are urging Biden to lean into a populist message on the economy, highlighting how he’s gone after corporate greed and contrasting his pro-union record with Trump’s embrace of billionaires and their priorities.
The idea that Biden should lean into a more economic populist message has long been a hobby horse of progressives. But Cancryn and Sisco report that this group includes more than just the Bernie Sanders wing of the party — his team also heard it from more mainstream Democrats as he hunkered down at Camp David for debate prep.
And the message does seem to make sense — according to a new Axios Vibes survey from The Harris Poll, 41 percent of Americans say that government spending and policies are most to blame for inflation, while 39 percent blame corporate greed and 20 percent blame supply chain disruptions. More Republicans blame the government than Democrats, and vice versa for corporations, but for independents it’s exactly even: 41 percent blame the government and 41 percent blame corporations. If Biden is going to come in for attacks on government spending, it might behoove him to change the topic to corporate greed where he can.
Trump’s economic message looks a little bit clearer than Biden’s at first glance. He will do what he can at every turn to hammer the president on government spending and inflation, which he called “a nation buster” at a rally in Wisconsin last week. But some of the Biden administration’s economic decisions might make it a little harder for Trump to draw contrasts.
In many cases, Biden has actually maintained or expanded Trump-era tariffs, in particular in relation to China. A two-year pause on tariffs on solar energy technology from four southeast Asian countries expired earlier in June, effectively ending the free trade era for clean energy technology in the U.S. Biden’s skepticism towards free trade has Trump insisting he’d do even more — more tariffs on China with fewer exceptions for certain goods and services in particular.
But how Trump plans to attack Biden for policies that sometimes look like Trump’s own — if CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash bring up this question — remains unclear. POLITICO’s Victoria Guida suggested today that Tapper and Bash should ask the candidates, “Are there any downsides to tariffs?”
It’s a question that the vast majority of economists wouldn’t have any trouble answering in the affirmative. Yet, with a political consensus shifting towards protectionism (or “America First”), the question could draw out a rare place in which the candidates have to at least be precise about their policy disagreements.
There’s a distinct possibility that tonight’s debate looks similar in tenor and content to one or both of the 2020 faceoffs, and few people leave the evening feeling differently
