Voters Seem To Lean Towards Trump On Economy, Recent Survey Shows
As the 2024 election gets gradually closer, the market's attention is increasingly focused on the approval ratings of the current U.S. president, Joe Biden.
Previous surveys show that Biden's approval ratings are not encouraging, and most of these polls attribute the dissatisfaction among U.S. citizens to the country's weak economy and high inflation.
However, the latest poll suggests that despite the recent economic recovery and cooling inflation in the United States, which have increased Americans' satisfaction with the economic situation, Biden has not seen any growth in his approval ratings.
According to the latest survey jointly conducted by the Financial Times and the Michigan University's Ross School of Business, nearly half of the American voters are relatively satisfied with the current economic situation, a significant increase compared to four months ago. However, Biden's approval rating did not concurrently rise.
The poll reflects the opinions of 1010 registered voters nationwide, surveyed between February 29 and March 4, with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.
In the March-centered poll, 48% of voters felt their personal economic condition was comfortable. Comparatively, only 43% chose this response in the Financial Times' first poll conducted in November last year.
Similarly, 30% of respondents in the latest March poll described the overall economic situation in the U.S. as excellent or good, a significant leap from November's 21%.
However, voter satisfaction with the economy did not translate into an increase in approval for Biden. In the March poll, only 36% of voters backed Biden's handling of economic affairs, identical to the results from last November; 59% of voters disapproved of Biden, only a 2-point decrease from November's poll results.
Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business, explained, It's bad news for President Biden because more voters rate him negatively on the economy than rate him positively. It has to worry his campaign that the independent voters who might decide the election rate his performance even worse.
Biden, who took over an economy on the brink of collapse, said in his State of the Union address last week, I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is the envy of the world.
Yet his self-praise and a series of robust figures, including a strong U.S. economic rebound, speedy inflation cooling, and all-time highs in the S&P500 index, were largely ignored by voters.
Although almost 60% of those polled by the Financial Times revealed that economic issues would be critical in their voting decision, voters did not respond positively to improvements in the American economy and remained dissatisfied with Biden.
Gordon added, Neither Mr Biden's messaging nor the data has swayed many voters his way.
Worse for Biden, voters seem to trust Trump more on economic issues: 40% trust Trump's handling of economic issues compared with only 34% for Biden; another 20% do not trust either of them.
The survey also showed that only 16% of self-identified independent respondents, who are crucial for Biden's campaign, reported greater trust in Biden compared to 29% in Trump.
Considering Trump's loyal voter base is incredibly solid and hard to sway, this is certainly not a good number for Mr. President.