Even if voters don’t come around on the economy, they will likely shift their perception in one key area. At the moment, the presidential race has hardly begun; Trump and Biden are not yet in competition with one another. When that competition kicks off, it will color perceptions: a stark choice between two candidates will be front of mind for the public and given the results of the 2020 presidential election and the most recent midterms, in which Trump was a massive drag on GOP electoral ambitions, it’s not unreasonable to think that contrast will aid Biden’s fortunes.
Trump has long pointed to the success of the stock market under his presidency—conveniently omitting the post-Covid dip—as a kind of alternate approval rating. But gains in the stock market largely went to the wealthy. His signature—and indeed only meaningful—legislative accomplishment was a bill that axed the corporate tax rate, kicked off a corporate stock buyback bonanza, and ballooned the deficit. Though still imperfect, thanks in part to his administration’s reluctance to take more aggressive measures on student loan forgiveness, Biden’s economic record is both strong and far more equitable. He can point to increased labor protections, a low unemployment rate, and to legislation aimed at paying workers, not lining the pockets of executives.
This also gets to a larger, and still largely overlooked, key to defeating Donald Trump. Democrats rightly see Trump as a dangerous aberration, a darkly authoritative and abnormal figure who is intent on subverting—and indeed destroying—American democracy at every turn. This is true, but there’s also good reason to believe that demystifying Trump as some sort of economic populist is as important, if not more important, when it comes to defeating him. Economically speaking, Trump largely acted as a bog-standard Republican, cutting taxes, weakening worker protections, benefiting the wealthy and corporations at every turn. For all of his abnormalities—and with the exception of a largely failed effort to start a trade war—Trump and his administration followed a Republican playbook that has been in place for generations.