Poll shows Harris gaining ground with voters on the economy in warning sign for Trump

Throughout his campaign, former President Donald Trump has relied heavily on voter discontent with the Biden administration’s handling of the economy, but recent polling suggests that such sentiment from voters isn’t sticking to Vice President Kamala Harris, flashing a major warning sign for the Republican’s chances in November.

The latest Associated Press/NORC survey found that voters trust Trump and Harris to handle the economy to a near-even degree. Forty-three percent of respondents indicated they preferred Trump on the issue, compared to 41% who preferred Harris. Trump also enjoyed an advantage on immigration, 45% to 40%, and on the Israel-Hamas War, 36% to 33%. But Harris outperformed Trump on health care, crime, abortion, gun policy, and climate change.

Conducted Sept. 12-16, the survey questioned 1,771 registered voters and has a margin of error of +/- 3.4%. The AP/NORC survey could be something of an outlier as most surveys have shown Trump to enjoy a broad advantage on economic issues. The poll does not provide a partisan breakdown of the voter sample, but says the sample was “drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population.”

Just the News has requested the partisan breakdown of the sample from the AP.

An AP/NORC survey from late June, meanwhile, showed that 34% approved of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy, compared to 64% who disapproved.

The issue is a potential warning sign for the Trump campaign, which has positioned the Republican as the more competent steward of the economy in contrast to the Democratic administration. Nonetheless, key players on the Republican side still see a viable message for him.

“We need all economic voters voting for Trump,” former Trump economic advisor Steve Moore told Just the News. “He has to keep stressing that people are poorer… the average family is doing worse than they were four years ago.”

One potentially mitigating factor in Trump’s favor is that the AP/NORC survey appears to be something of an outlier among major pollsters. By contrast, a recent New York Times/Siena College survey saw likely voters favor Trump on the economy over Harris by a split of 54% to 41%. That survey’s weighted sample included 36% Democrats, 33% Republicans, and 31% others. Conducted Sept. 11-16, the survey questioned 2,437 likely voters.

Potentially explaining the possible shift in voter perception of the economy is a string of economic data that the Harris campaign can use to argue that the country is moving in the right direction.

“We're getting late in the game for there to be any shifts, but if there's a market change in one direction or the other, you know, people feel better about their finances in a month and then they go to cast their ballot, that's going to be a boost for Vice President Harris,” pollster Scott Rasmussen said last week on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Some such shifts in the economy have indeed occurred. The stock market, for instance, has enjoyed a noticeable bounce in the wake of the Federal Reserve opting to reduce interest rates by half a percentage point this week. With another Fed meeting slated for early November, the prospect of additional rate cuts presents a reason for the Harris campaign to be optimistic.

Inflation, meanwhile, one of the weakest points for the Biden administration in terms of polling, fell to a 2.9% annualized rate in August. Consumer prices, moreover, rose 2.5% from the same month in the year prior, marking the lowest such increase since February of 2021. August also saw the unemployment rate decrease moderately, dropping from 4.3% in July to 4.2%.

Biden had a 35.5% approval rating on inflation in the RealClearPolitics polling average, with 63.3% disapproving of his handling of the issue.

The Trump campaign, for its part, has worked relentlessly to pin Harris to Biden on the issue of inflation, asserting that “[t]here is ‘no daylight’ between the destructive economic policies of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.”

The campaign has also linked her to inflation directly by highlighting her vote in support of Biden’s “American Rescue Plan,” arguing that the spending package contributed directly to rising inflation.

Harris, for her part, has leaned into the economy somewhat and has laid out a vision to address prices that includes a ban on “corporate price-gouging.” That pledge drew scrutiny even from pundits on the left, though she also attracted criticisms for a plan to provide $25,000 to eligible families to make down payments to buy homes.

Despite the backlash to some of her topline proposals, however, it appears that her attention to economic issues has bolstered public perception of her on the matter.