It goes without saying that the political landscape has undergone remarkable changes since we’ve seen President Joe Biden step aside and watched Vice President Kamala Harris take the nomination by storm. As these shifts happen, one wonders if Donald Trump grasps the extent to which the political climate has transmuted and the causal factors behind these transformations. The air has been filled with theories from various pundits, conjecturing whether Democrats believed Biden could lose the election post the June presidential debate. However, traces of Biden’s possible downfall can be discerned much earlier, probably right from the inception of his presidency.
Analyzing Biden’s political downturn, it’s crucial to recall the circumstances heralding his 2020 victory. Chiefly, his triumph was attributed to gaining independent voters’ trust by 13 points. Exit polls indicate a decent 51 percent of independent voters had a favorable image of Biden, contrasted with 45 percent who held an unfavorable view. Though not outstanding, at least a slight majority inclined in his favor. But then, Biden chose to veer firmly to the left, favoring his party’s base rather than leading from the center.
Following two years of this heavily leaned liberal governing style, Biden’s approval among independents dramatically slumped. With his party losing the House in the 2022 elections, Biden’s positive/negative perception ratio amongst independent voters, as reported by exit polls, plummeted to 37-60 percent. Thus, his majority coalition disintegrated. Thereon, this metric continued to slide downward, with Biden rapidly progressing to match Trump’s unfavorable numbers.
When 2024 dawned, a new, crucial voter block emerged — those who held both Biden and Trump in unfavorable regard. This group encompassed about 20 percent of the total electorate and a whopping 40 percent of independents. This raises an intriguing question — how does a voter who harbors distaste for both candidates choose their pick? Speculations run rampant, suggesting that perhaps they might abstain from voting. However, these voters with dual-negative sentiments became key drivers of Trump’s victory in 2016, wherein 18 percent disliked both Hillary Clinton and Trump. Nevertheless, Trump managed to secure them convincingly with a 17-point lead, 47-30 percent.
Comparatively, the 2024 scenario presented a whole new dynamic. Neither Biden nor Trump seemed capable of harnessing these dual-negative voters, leaving a significant portion undecided. However, the subsequent ascendancy of Harris as the Democratic nominee altered this balance. Though Harris’s favorable-unfavorable ratio wasn’t notably different from Biden’s, it was relatively better. A Winning the Issues survey conducted in July showed Harris’s positive/negative rating at 46-50 percent, while Biden lagged at 41-57 and Trump at 42-57 percent.
Even though half the country viewed Harris unfavorably, she was still 7 points ahead of Biden, which caused a seismic shift in the race. This presents a new challenge for Trump in the current race. The July Winning the Issues survey revealed that 19 percent of voters held both Biden and Trump in an unfavorable light, compared to 13 percent who viewed Harris and Trump unfavorably. Importantly, of the voters disliking both Biden and Trump, 60 percent had a negative view of Harris.
However, the dilemma for the Trump campaign lies in handling the remaining 40 percent of the same voter group who view Harris either favorably or neutrally. Evidently, she has garnered support from a segment of these voters, and this is where her present momentum stems from. The battleground for Trump has now changed. His unfavorable rating is relatively higher than hers, and his positive rating is lower. This holds true even among independent voters. But all is not lost for Trump as he still has a significant upper hand: the economy, more specifically, concerns about inflation.
In the July Winning the Issues survey, it was found that 41 percent of voters considered these two issues paramount. When asked which party they trusted more to manage the economy, Republicans had a 10-point lead (49-39 percent), and they had an 11-point lead (49-38 percent) on the topic of inflation. Only 39 percent of voters approved of Biden’s handling of the economy, while an overwhelming 55 percent disapproved. A major segment also believed that inflation was worsening.
For the Republicans, though, converting these economic concerns into votes has proven to be remarkably challenging. A pivotal reason why the 2022 election didn’t witness a ‘red wave’ was this inability, supported by their weaker performance among independent voters. Independents had repeatedly favored Republicans in all ten consecutive elections when a Democrat occupied the White House until they lost this group by 2 points in the 2022 polls.
According to the 2022 exit polls, the majority of independent voters identified inflation as their top concern, with 79 percent opining that the economy was in a ‘not so good’ or poor state. Republicans enjoyed clear preference from independents on the topic of inflation, leading by an 11-point margin, 52-41. However, among the 41 percent of independents who graded the economy as ‘not so good,’ they swung in favor of the Democratic candidate by a significant 29-point edge, 62-33 percent.
Despite holding an 11-point lead on the key concern among independents, Republicans lost their support by 2 points, accounting for a 13-point shift. This represents a lost opportunity for Republicans, suggesting that independents were seeking a deeper, more substantive economic message from the party, beyond the call to ‘fire the Democrats.’ The key question for Trump and his fellow Republican candidates is whether they have gleaned this crucial lesson from the 2022 election.
A promising development is that many Republicans are now urging Trump to concentrate more on implementing policy measures. The strategy of continually highlighting Biden and Harris’s failings hasn’t yielded the desired results. Instead, both Trump and the congressional Republicans need to articulate solid strategies for restoring the economy. Interestingly, Harris has recently extended a helping hand to Trump and Republicans.
In her first distinctly economic policy declaration since her nomination, Harris adopted Trump’s innovative proposal to abolish taxes on tips. However, Trump didn’t seize this golden opportunity. Instead of welcoming her nod to his idea and expressing hope to gather her support for other similar policies, he berated her for ‘stealing’ his idea, adding a layer of personal attack. If Trump fails to better calibrate his responses and focus on policy rather than personal attacks, he may face a longer journey ahead.