It's a quintessential question in election years: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" The percentage of Americans that said "no" in the latest Gallup poll is higher than usual, which could be bad news for Democrats. In the poll conducted last month, Gallup asked, "Would you say you and your family are better off now than you were four years ago, or are you worse off now?" Only 39% said they are better off, with 52% saying they are worse off and 9% saying things are about the same. According to Gallup, this year's poll result is most comparable to 1992, when only 38% said they were better off—and George HW Bush lost his re-election bid.
A wide partisan split suggests people weren't answering based entirely on their economic circumstances. Some 72% of Democrats said they were better off, compared to 35% of independents and just 7% of Republicans. According to Gallup, the unusually high 55% who said they were better off when the question was asked in September 2020 is largely due to Republicans' "much greater likelihood to give that response than supporters of the incumbent president's party did in prior election years."
- But Gallup's Economic Confidence Index, a measure of how Americans feel about the economy, is down from -4 in 2020 to -26 this year on a scale of -100 to 100, the lowest since the 2008 financial crisis. In 1992, it was -37.
- Gallup's Economic Confidence Index number for 2020 is from October that year—it was -10 the previous month after starting the year at 41 and falling as low as -33 in the early months of the pandemic. A record low of 9% of voters that year cited economic issues as the most important problem the country was facing, Gallup noted at the time. This year, the figure was 43%. Only 44% of respondents viewed the job market favorably.
- The fact that Donald Trump lost the election in 2020 is "a sign that noneconomic factors were paramount to voters that year," according to Gallup. But this year, with "a majority of Americans feeling they are not better off than four years ago, economic confidence remaining low, and less than half of Americans saying now is a good time to find a quality job," the election could hinge on which candidate is seen as better on the economy, the pollsters say.
- The Hill reports that according to the Hill/DecisionDesk HQ index, based on 262 polls, Kamala Harris is leading Trump 49.8% to 47.1%, but the race is a lot tighter in the battleground states likely to decide the election.
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