Editor’s note: Lanhee J. Chen, PhD, is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion and is a David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution. He is a candidate for California State Controller in 2022. Chen has served in senior positions in both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations and has served as an adviser on four presidential campaigns, including serving as Romney-Ryan’s 2012 political director. The views expressed in this commentary are original of his own. See CNN for more opinions.
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President Joe Biden’s recent introduction of “bidenomics,” an economic theory based on harnessing the power and resources of the federal government to create jobs and economic growth, has become fodder for the Republican presidential candidates running against him. Recently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign campaign released a memo linking the term to higher prices and inflation, while South Carolina Senator Tim Scott offered a similar criticism.
Biden’s adoption of the term, reminiscent of former President Barack Obama’s use of the term “Obamacare” to describe his then-controversial health care law, is likely to confuse some — and with good reason.
After all, Americans are fundamentally unhappy with Biden’s handling of the economy. Recent polls by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Gallup and others concluded that many more Americans (about two-thirds in the case of the ` poll) like the way Biden is managing the country’s economy, disapprove. Meanwhile, a CNN poll in April found that about 70% of respondents think the economy is in “bad shape”.
Actual economic data is mixed. While the unemployment picture remains favorable for Biden, the pace of recent job creation has lagged behind estimates. And Americans’ views on Biden’s handling of the economy could still be influenced by the significant inflation experienced by the US economy in 2022 or by the widespread belief that a recession is imminent.
So why does Biden want to talk about his record and his plans for the economy when it seems like campaigning as an alternative to former President Donald Trump is the clearer path to re-election?
In most presidential elections, public perception of the incumbent’s handling of the economy has been the determining factor in his or her success or failure. If Former President Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 and Obama in 2012. Both drew public attention to their policies and claimed that they were responsible for any progress in the country’s economic situation.
So for Biden, the goal is to win voters over with his economic record, at a time when most voters are either unaware of the policies he has endorsed or, frankly, don’t see the economy in the best of shape .
Be it the Inflation Reduction Act that pours hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending into the US economy, the CHIPS Act that invests public money to strengthen US leadership in semiconductors, or the bipartisan Infrastructure Act that will create new avenues With construction projects across America, the trick for Biden is to highlight his achievements without giving the impression that the battle against inflation and recession has been won.
Biden’s focus on the economy serves two political purposes. First, it provides Democrats with information about why he deserves re-election and, perhaps more importantly, spurs them on to vote. The importance of this grassroots partisan involvement in a time of bipartisanship is clear. Without Democratic turnout in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin, Biden’s path to re-election will be extremely difficult.
Second, Biden needs an argument to convince cautious independents that he deserves four more years in office. For those voters, Biden’s argument that he’s “not Trump” just might not be convincing enough the second time around.
Biden’s support is weak in Pennsylvania, where a recent Quinnipiac University poll found independents backing Trump by a 14-point margin over Biden, with the state overall dead heat. In Arizona, too, Biden’s lead over Trump is just three points, both among independents and overall. And there’s also the possibility that someone other than Trump could be the Republican nominee.
Biden’s team doesn’t want to be short on time or resources to tell the story of the president’s economic record should Trump fail to emerge with the Republican nomination. They understand that trying to explain Bidenomics and its benefits next summer or fall may be too late.
More importantly, some voters — particularly those not strongly associated with one party or another — judge incumbents by what they did in office. The president’s record is therefore important in assessing whether he should be granted four more terms – a concept known in political science as “retrospective voting.”
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Most worrying for the Biden camp: A Washington Post and ABC News poll earlier this year found that over 60% of respondents — including 59% of self-proclaimed moderate voters — believed Biden had “not very much” or “little” achieved or nothing” since taking office. The same poll found that 60% of voters didn’t believe Biden had made progress in “creating more good jobs” in their communities.
These numbers are discouraging for Biden’s team. A lack of awareness of his economic record is likely why Biden and his team have consistently (and relentlessly lately) focused on defining bidenomics before his political opponents do it for him. As if the perceived economic headwinds weren’t enough, Biden must contend with the public perception that his would-be opponent Trump has managed the economy better than Biden during his tenure.
For Biden, the key to success is telling voters about Bidenomics and explaining why they should take a positive view of it before Republicans corner him completely. And fundamental to all of this will be his ability to do so before many voters have a decidedly negative view of the state of the economy and the president’s role in making things happen.
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