Theory on economic polling

[ProgressiveModerate]

There's been a lot of discussion around economic polling and how despite a lot of good topline stats around how the economy is doing, people seem to favor the economy from the Trump years.

One suggestion I have for why this is Trump voters views of the economy are much more likely to be dictated by who's President than Biden voters who tend to be more likely to believe the President doesn't have a lot of control over the economy - they are more able to say the economy is good without giving Trump credit or say the economy is bad without blaming Biden.

Trump supporters are more likely to see that question almost as a proxy for if they support Trump/oppose Biden.

Basically, my hypothesis is you maybe have 40% where the condition for if the economy is good is if a Republican is President, maybe only 20% for Democrats, so overall polling will almost always suggests the economy is better under a Republican President regardless of if that's true or not.

[Obama24]

I think it's way more simple than that.

Our economy has on the whole been weak since 2008.

Obama did his best despite an oppositional Congress and we began seeing a true recovery around 2014/2015.

This unfortunately coincides with the start of Trump's term. Even before leaving office, the last year of Obama's term he was kinda a background player.

In 2015-2016, Trump didn't campaign on the economy - because he couldn't. It was good.

What he did campaign on were things that effected the disaffected working class in rural areas and in cities - jobs being sent over seas, fearmongering over TPP, etc.

He presided over essentially the full breadth of the Obama recovery, and frankly, economically the period of 2014-2019 were great years for the American economy.

Then the pandemic hit and destroyed that. Trump's massive deficit spending with the stimulus checks (and the one under Biden) really began showing up in 2021, 2022 as inflation. This hit hard. Even now, it still feels like inflation is much worse than it was in 2019, even if it is much better than it was in 2022.

You have to understand that the economy is both a living and organic thing and also a mythic beast. A bunch of tables, and charts can't change what someone feels.

Call what we are going through 'feelflation'. Inflation may be better than 2022 and 2021, but to your average working class person, it feels like things never got better.