by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
President Biden defended his economic record Wednesday, citing a recent consumer sentiment report that he said backs him up.
His green-eyeshade defense using a university report was not the sort of sales pitch many Democratic candidates preferred from Biden, who visited Racine, Wis., a battleground state that may decide next year’s Oval Office occupant. Trump won Wisconsin by one point in 2016 and Biden won the state by a point in 2020.
The president, comparing his policies with those of former President Trump, rejected polls that show that voters trust Trump on the economy more than they trust Biden.
During an interview with CNN, the president was hard pressed to construct an accessible story about how his economic policies are affecting real Americans.
We’ve already turned it around,” Biden said from Wisconsin. “The polling data has been wrong all along.”
In an unusual concession about an election-year vulnerability, he added that polls show voters “think the nation’s not in good shape, but [they think] they’re personally in good shape.”
Biden recommended voters “look at the markets’” for reactions to the recent 1.6 percent gross domestic product report for the first quarter, which indicated a slowing economy. Cooling indicators of output are expected to lower inflationary pressures. Democratic presidents for eons have argued that Wall Street bets are not the real economy; Main Street holds the tape measure.
Voters complain about inflation, rising gas prices, high interest rates, unaffordable housing costs and the sticker shock of college tuition. Voters gauge the health of any economy relying on what they see and experience. They blame incumbent presidents when they’re anxious, and they look to political challengers when they’re shopping for change.
Even some of Biden’s closest allies and surrogates have conceded that his economic sales pitch to Americans “is a work in progress.” Election Day is six months away.
Former President Bill Clinton, who transformed George H.W. Bush into a one-term president amid a recession, told an audience two months after his inauguration, “I’d a lot rather get beat trying to put people to work than get beat fighting putting people to work.”
Biden conceded Wednesday that voters have many reasons for worrying their purchase power and their economic well-being have eroded. But he said 15 million jobs have been created during his term and wages are higher. He criticized former President Trump as invested in the wealthy, not the middle class, and as a spinner of economic promises, many of them illusions.
Reuters: Biden touts $3.3 billion Microsoft data center at failed Foxconn site Trump backed in Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, Trump’s hush money criminal trial resumes today in Manhattan. And House Republicans on Wednesday underscored deep internal divisions by voting with help from Democrats to table a motion triggered by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to try to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). The vote to shield Johnson was 359-43-7, but both Republicans wound up weakened by the tempest.