Relaxation in politics can turn into nonchalance. Just before leaving Oregon on Saturday, October 15, Joe Biden wished to eat ice cream, one of his long-identified pleasures. The procession stopped in front of a sign of the Baskin-Robbins chain, in Gresham, near Portland. The American president chose a well-stocked cone then responded, while tasting, to a few journalists focused on the country’s economic situation. “I am not concerned about the strength of the dollar, he said. I am concerned about the rest of the world. Our economy is damn strong. » Joe Biden added that inflation was a global phenomenon. This final remark was certainly correct, but the sequence produced an undesired effect.
The video was relayed on conservative sites, presented as an exhibit in the lawsuit in denial against the Biden administration. This would have underestimated and underestimated for a year the question of the cost of living and economic difficulties. Three weeks before the mid-term elections, the subject is nevertheless at the heart of the concerns of American voters.
Material short term
According to a CBS News poll, 65% of Americans believe the state of the US economy is pretty bad. Additionally, 68% believe the Biden administration could do more to fight inflation. In the Center for American Political Studies (Harvard/Harris), a table holds the attention: that of the priorities of the moment, in the eyes of the people interviewed. Inflation comes first at 37%, followed by the economy and jobs at 29%, then immigration and crime. Women’s rights (including abortion) appear only in fifth position (17%). As for the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump, we must go down to the 19e place to find it (7%).
At the end of August, the Democrats had nurtured the hope of a reversal of the trend, of a possibility of maintaining a narrow majority in the Senate, or even in the House of Representatives. However, the latest studies indicate that the so-called independent voters – crucial, in a context of powerful polarization – tend to return in large numbers to the Republicans.
Professor of economics at Yale University, Ray Fair is a pioneer in electoral forecasting. Its mathematical model is based primarily on economic data. In his update at the end of July, he envisaged a national result for the Democrats, in November, around 46.7% of the vote. “The basic data has not changed sincehe explains. The Democrats appear behind the Republicans by about 3 points, although my equation is not perfect. Inflation is the reason people are angry, even though unemployment is low. I have studied the effects of the economy over more than a century, since 1916. Inflation has always been a very important criterion in voting, even if it has been almost absent for three decades. »
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