Trump vs. Biden, in One Simple Chart By Jim Geraghty
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-vs-biden-in-one-simple-chart/
It’s just a small chart, running alongside an article on page A5 of the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, but it says so much about why Donald Trump — after losing his reelection bid, after January 6, after four indictments — is running ahead of Biden in most of the swing states. One closing paragraph summarizes the numbers:
Though inflation is falling now, it has been higher on average under Biden than Trump. Adjusted for inflation, [household] net worth was up just 0.7 percent through Biden’s first three years, compared with 16 percent through Trump’s first three years.
The numbers are from the Saint Louis Federal Reserve Bank.
And there you go. Americans don’t blame Trump for Covid, so they give him a pass for the fourth year of his presidency and grade him on those first three years. A household net worth increasing 16 percent over three years is pretty good! And staying flat over three years is pretty bad. Sure, wages have increased over the past three years, but the corresponding increase in prices has eaten up almost all of those gains.
Will other issues matter in this election besides the economy? Sure. When Americans are asked open-ended questions about which issue is most important to their vote in the presidential election, immigration and the border consistently rank second. Abortion and the future of democracy get mentioned too, but they’re always a distant third, usually mentioned as most important by about 10 percent of the electorate.
This fall, if Americans feel like their household net worth is increasing, they’re likely to reelect Biden. If they feel like they’re treading water or that everything is harder to afford, they’re likely to reelect Trump. This isn’t the only factor, but it’s the biggest factor.
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