US economy: Americans aren’t buying what Biden is selling

Good morning from Washington — at last — and welcome to US Election Countdown. I hope you had fun with Emily last week.

Joe Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union address on Thursday, as he hit concerns about his age and vitality head-on. And make no mistake: that was a campaign speech. Biden and his surrogates have now kicked off a post-SOTU tour of the country — and they have their work cut out for them, particularly on the economy.

Americans are feeling better about the economy, but they just won’t give Biden credit for it, according to a new FT-Michigan Ross poll [free to read]. Roughly 48 per cent of voters said they were now living “comfortably” or could “meet expenses with a little left over” in the first week of March, up from 43 per cent in November 2023, when the Financial Times first asked the question.

Almost a third of survey respondents said overall US economic conditions were “excellent” or “good” earlier this month, up from just over a fifth in November.

But Biden’s economic approval rating leaves a lot to be desired at 36 per cent, despite the US having the strongest growth and fastest falling inflation of any large advanced economy. Unemployment is hovering near record lows while the job market stays hot. And on Wall Street, the S&P 500 has hit record highs this year.

So what’s going on? Shouldn’t voters love all of this? The reality is that prices rose at a fast clip during Biden’s first term (for his part, the president said during his SOTU address that he “inherited an economy that was on the brink”). But now 45 per cent of voters think his economic policies have actually hurt the economy.

While costs are going up much more slowly now, 80 per cent of voters said price increases were among their biggest source of financial stress. Forty per cent of survey respondents said they trusted Donald Trump’s handling of the economy compared with 34 per cent for Biden.

But there is some good news for Biden: a growing number of voters think large corporations are taking advantage of inflation to charge more, up to 63 per cent in March from 58 per cent in February and 54 per cent in November. He already said during the SOTU that corporations needed to pay more taxes so expect to hear him aim his sights at corporations more as he hits the campaign trail.

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Campaign clips: the latest election headlines

• As the clock ticks on Trump’s half-billion-dollar fraud judgment, speculation is rampant as to which assets he might be forced to sell or pledge as collateral.

• Biden and Trump could win enough delegates to officially become the presumptive nominee of their respective parties after today’s primaries. (Washington Post)

• In his $7.3bn budget, Biden has offered a stark contrast with Trump’s economic plans.

• Dive into this Big Read exploring whether Biden can win back US voters.

• Even though his own campaign uses TikTok, Biden said he’d sign a bill banning TikTok from US app stores.

• There’s a big shake-up at the Republican National Committee just days after Trump’s new leadership team has taken over. More than 60 staffers are reportedly being laid off. (Politico) 

Behind the scenes

Republican billionaire megadonors Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, Midwestern shipping supplies magnates based in the battleground state of Wisconsin, are getting behind Trump’s re-election campaign after initially bankrolling Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s failed bid. This is great news for Trump, who needs as much cash as he can get as he tries to shrink Biden’s fundraising advantage.

“We back Trump,” Elizabeth Uihlein told the FT’s Alex Rogers [free to read]. She and her husband are the highest-profile megadonors to return to Trump. They each gave $1.5mn to DeSantis, and Elizabeth said she would give Trump a similar figure.

But she seemed exasperated by the state of money in politics. “These two guys are very well-defined. I don’t understand why everybody has to give all this money,” she said, referring to Trump and Biden. “Neither of them have to spend a penny. We all know who they are. It’s ridiculous.”

She also doesn’t love the former president’s rhetoric:

“Everybody likes Trump’s policies,” she said. “But we have almost 10,000 people that work for us and I would never talk to them the way Trump talks to people.”

Since the 2016 election cycle, the Uihleins have given more than $250mn to federal candidates and political groups. They’ve also waded into races closer to home.

Datapoints

In conjunction with his post-SOTU tour, Biden’s campaign has launched a $30mn advertising blitz in battleground states, as he taps into a $56mn cash pile that is much more robust than Trump’s $30.5mn on hand, according to campaign finance data.

Overall, his campaign and political action committees have poured $125.5mn into adverts across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, six states that will probably decide the 2024 election. 

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Biden has spent the most in Pennsylvania at $35.1mn, followed by $24.7mn in Michigan and $21.5mn in Arizona. 

The new adverts are likely to focus on shoring up the party’s base, with the Biden campaign saying they will focus on “high-impact and non-traditional TV opportunities” including Black, Hispanic, comedy and sports outlets. 

He has already spent tens of millions on adverts set to run in the autumn during the run-up to Election Day, including more than $115.5mn for spots from the week of October 1 to the week of November 5.

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Viewpoints

• Forecaster Peter Turchin tells the FT’s Henry Mance that “the US is in a much more perilous state than Russia”

• Edward Luce and I break down Biden’s SOTU in this episode of the FT’s Swamp Notes podcast.

• Replacing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with cabinet minister Benny Gantz has become Biden’s unofficial policy as Democrats become increasingly disillusioned with the US president’s support for the Jewish state’s military actions in Gaza, Edward Luce writes in our Swamp Notes newsletter [available for Premium subscribers].

• The US electorate is undergoing a racial realignment, writes John Burn-Murdoch.

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