Why didn’t a bad economy lead to the widely anticipated mid-term “bloodbath” for Democrats?
It is not yet clear which party will eventually control Congress, but the Democrats have far exceeded the normal mid-term performance for a party that holds the White House.
They suffered nothing like the loss of 64 seats in the House in 2010 or the loss of 42 Republican seats in 2018.
What happened?
The new narrative is that it was abortion, which turned out to be a more powerful argument than expected.
And concerns about abortion have certainly helped avert a red wave.
But exit polls suggest that concerns about the future of democracy, which cynical observers dismissed as unlikely to move many voters, were also important enough, with nearly as many voters citing this as their primary consideration as much as the number you have. mentioned inflation.
And maybe the economy wasn’t dragging the Democrats as expected.
Some of us have been debating this economic performance under the president for a while Joe Biden it was better than the media suggested.
The labor market has been truly fantastic, with a surprisingly rapid return to pre-pandemic employment levels, in contrast to the slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
Rising prices have eroded purchasing power, but wages have also risen, outpacing inflation for the lowest paid workers, both since the eve of the pandemic and since Biden took office.
Economists pointing to positive economic news have generally been dismissed as out of line; ordinary Americans, we were told, they didn’t feel it.
After all, the confidence index The widely cited consumer index at the University of Michigan plunged to levels never seen since the financial crisis and, before that, the stagflation of the 1980s.
But there are other indicators and they tell a different story.
Another long-standing consumer survey, by the unbiased Conference Board, shows that inflation weighs on confidence, but only enough to bring it to 2015 levels.
And if you ask me, this week’s election was more like the Conference Board than Michigan.
A Federal Reserve survey for 2021 showed that households are very negative about the national economy but very positive about their finances and somewhere in between about local economies, of which they have firsthand knowledge.
I assume the results for 2022 will be similar.
And consumer spending remained strong, which does not match with claims of intense economic pessimism.
At least it seems possible that the Americans told pollsters that the economy is terrible, because that’s what they heard from the media, but they voted based on their personal experiencewhich is much more varied.
Furthermore, although voters do not strongly appreciate inflation, it is not clear how much it has shifted their votes.
It’s true that voters who cited inflation as their biggest concern tended to vote Republican, more than 7 out of 10, according to CNN’s exit poll.
But when you think about it, that statistic raises cause and effect issues.
Do people worried about inflation tend to vote Republican, or do people who were already voting Republican tend to identify inflation as their key issue?
Probably some of both.
NBC News asked a slightly different question:
Which party do you trust most to manage inflation?
Republicans were favorites, but only 52% to 44%, which seems to me a surprisingly narrow margin given the historical tendency of voters to blame the party in the White House whenever bad things happen.
So perhaps political analysts haven’t given enough credit to voters.
Rising prices bothers Americans a lot, but many of them may have seen through the void of Republican rhetoric and realized that Republicans don’t have an inflation plan.
Which brings me to the final question:
What were the political consequences of the Bidenomy?
The consensus is that the large spending early in Biden’s presidency was politically disastrous, fueling inflation and causing widespread public backlash.
although the American rescue plan it also helped promote rapid job growth, we were told the Democrats would have no credit for it.
Given the election results, however, it appears that employment growth may have been more positive for Democrats than the narrative suggests.
And while large spending in 2021 likely contributed to inflation, much of the recent inflation, particularly rising gasoline prices and politically salient food prices, has reflected events beyond the control of any president ( unless your name is president). Vladimir Putin).
Let’s put it like this:
had there been no bailout and inflation had been 6% instead of 8%, but gas and food prices would have risen anyway,
Would the Democrats have been in a much stronger political position?
Probably not.
And if there had been fewer jobs created by the fiscal stimulus, the Democrats could actually have done worse.
my point is that while the midterms have shown that voters care about issues beyond the economy, they have also suggested that the harsh negative verdicts on bidenomics they were premature.
Biden’s economy hasn’t gone badly and he hasn’t sunk his party.
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
