Joe Biden, Donald Trump ask voters if they’re ‘better’ now or four years ago

“Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Voters’ answers to this question are rarely so complex.

Former President Donald Trump posed the time-tested question to his supporters in capital letters on his Truth social platform on Monday. President Joe Biden did the same thing three times this week at three fundraisers in Texas as he closed out his campaign in the Southwest.

Each candidate hopes the answer will be in his favor, but the final verdict is likely to come down to whether people are reflecting on the Covid-19 pandemic, the state of their wallets or their broader sense of well-being.

Four years ago, the country was in the throes of nationwide shutdowns due to the coronavirus, with unemployment soaring and the stock market tumbling. Now, Democratic and Republican candidates are sprinting toward a rematch with the virus only a traumatic memory for most Americans, markets rising and unemployment at or near historic lows.

If the handling of a once-in-a-century pandemic defined the 2020 presidential race, voters appear to have other things on their minds as they consider their options in 2024.

“Speaking of Donald Trump, just a few days ago he famously asked a question at a rally: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Biden told donors this week. “Donald, I’m glad you asked that question because I want everyone in the country to take a moment and think back to March of 2020.”

From there, Biden began recalling the dark moments early in the pandemic, when hospital emergency rooms were overcrowded, first responders risked their lives to care for patients and some nurses had to wear garbage bags because of a lack of them. Personal protective equipment.

Trump cast a wider net as he reflected on the American psyche.

“Under the Trump administration, your lives are better, your families are better, your neighbors are better, your communities are better, and we The country has also become a better place; that’s for sure.” rallied this month. “America is stronger, more resilient, richer, more secure and more confident.”

“There will never be a war,” Trump claimed. “Russia will never attack Ukraine. Israel will never be attacked. There will be no inflation.”

The roots of the “Are you better off?” cue can be traced to the 1980 presidential campaign, when Ronald Reagan catapulted him into the White House by stabbing then-incumbent President Jimmy Carter in a televised debate. White House.

In a February AP-NORC poll, only 24% of Americans said their lives were better than they were when Biden became president, while 41% said their lives were worse and 34% It means neither. Most also said the country and the national economy were in worse shape than they were when Biden took office.

Biden aides believe the issue — like other polling barometers of the president’s performance — has been overtaken by partisanship. They say their internal surveys show voters tend to erase the pandemic from their memories unless reminded, and when asked about Trump, they tend to think of the years before the pandemic rather than 2020 .

The Biden team insists their focus is on meeting voters, but they have no intention of asking voters the Reagan question. But after Trump interjected, Biden quickly retorted.

Addressing wealthy Texas donors, Biden reminded his audience that four years ago, morgues were set up outside hospitals because too many people were dying, unemployment was soaring, the stock market was falling and grocery store shelves were empty. At the time, Trump ignored the advice of public health experts and pushed unproven treatments on the public.

“Remember when he said injecting bleach?” Biden asked in Houston. After a few chuckles, Biden continued: “I think that’s what he must have done.”

Meanwhile, the Biden team released an ad highlighting some of Trump’s most controversial moments from 2020, including the bleach comment, his self-rating of a “10” on the pandemic response, and his Reflections on Virus Death: “This is What This Is.”

Trump’s national press secretary, Carolyn Leavitt, disputed Biden’s claims in a statement.

“Joe Biden and his media allies can cherry-pick numbers from the worst of the COVID-19 crisis all they want, but Americans know Biden is a disaster, and they are faring much better under President Trump. , which is why President Trump continues to suppress Biden at the polls,” she said.

Four years ago, Trump earned extremely poor ratings from voters for his handling of the pandemic, which cost him the White House, and more than 1.1 million people in the United States would die from Covid-19. But most of those deaths occurred during Biden’s presidency, as he struggled to contain new variants and increase vaccination rates for lifesaving vaccines developed under Trump.

Well, the “better” answer can go in many directions.

“Today, the answer is clearly ‘it depends,'” said Republican strategist Alex Conant. “The pandemic is over, but no one is blaming Trump for causing it, and no one is crediting him with the vaccine that ended it. The economy is doing well, but it’s only coming off a historic round of inflation that people are still feeling uneasy about. After inflation. For most voters, the answer isn’t clear — which is why the election results themselves are unclear so far.”

He added: “I don’t think any voters want to go back to the dark days of 2020, but judging from the polling numbers, most voters don’t like 2024 very much either.”

In some ways, many voters did feel better during the pandemic because of the massive amounts of government aid. Their bank accounts have grown dramatically while coronavirus-related shutdowns have kept inflation and interest rates extremely low. Government borrowing is paying for these expected gains, with budget deficits totaling $3.1 trillion in 2020 and nearly $2.8 trillion in 2021, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Average annual incomes have spiked in each of the three rounds of pandemic aid. Economists at the University of California, Berkeley, said the average disposable income after inflation of the bottom 50% of U.S. income earners jumped to $46,000 in March 2021 after receiving Biden’s COVID-19 relief funds. As of March 2023, average disposable income has dropped to $26,100. So while people’s incomes are actually higher than they were before the outbreak in early 2020, they may feel they are worse off.

Still, Biden is trying to project a forward-looking streak on backward-looking issues as he aims to make contrasts with Trump a centerpiece of his reelection campaign.

“The problem is not just going back to where Trump ran the country. That’s where he wants to take us now,” he told donors.

He concluded: “Guys, this isn’t about me. It’s about him.”

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