SATURDAy, NOVEMbER 9 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
BY JEFF STEINIn late October, President
Trump spoke with one of his top
advisers after reading reports of
election forecasting models that
predict a win for him based o n the
economy’s performance.
These projections — from
Moody’s Analytics, Oxford, and
Yale economist Ray Fair — gauge
things like the unemployment
rate and income growth to predict
the election’s outcome. Three of
the leading models show Trump
winning easily in 2020.
“He was delighted by those sto-
ries. He’s been very interested in
them,” said Larry Kudlow, direc-
tor of the White House National
Economic Council, s aying they re-
flect a “middle-class worker
boom” under Trump.
Engulfed in an impeachment
inquiry and facing eroding sup-
port, Trump has turned to the
strength of the U.S. economy as a
sign that he is likely to be reelect-
ed. Since World War II, no U.S.
president has lost reelection
when the unemployment r ate was
below 7.4 percent. No president
has even run for reelection when
the jobless rate was as low as it is
now — 3 .6 percent.
Trump will soon test this prece-
dent. His poll numbers remain
very weak, and his support in
suburbs has eroded steadily. A
number of political experts say
traditional measures of economic
success may not prove decisive
enough for voters to give Trump a
second term.
On Tuesday, one day before the
House of Representatives begins
public impeachment hearings,
Trump plans to give a speech in
New York on trade and economic
policy, potentially setting up a
contrast with Democrats over pri-
orities heading into next year. A
White House spokesman disput-
ed that Trump has poor approval
ratings, pointing to polling from
the 2016 election that he said
incorrectly demonstrated the
president’s unpopularity.
“President Trump has created
the hottest economy in modern
history, and you can be certain
that it will be a persistent theme
emanating from the Trump cam-
paign,” said Kayleigh McEnany,
Trump’s national press secretary,
in a separate statement.
But it is far from clear whether
Trump can bank on the economy
for his reelection. Political scien-
tists note electoral models based
on the economy may miss crucial
factors, such as rising health-care
costs, as well as how voters view
the personal behavior of the presi-
dent.
State elections earlier this week
may have also underscored the
president’s political danger, as Re-
publicans suffered embarrassing
losses in Kentucky and Virginia,
where economic growth remains
relatively strong. And signs of vot-
er discontent with the president
have emerged in crucial swing
states, including over health care.
“Typically, these sorts of mod-
els include only economic vari-
ables, plus some measure of in-
cumbency. The problem is that
those aren’t the only things that
matter,” said Alan Abramowitz, a
political scientist at Emory Uni-
versity. “They leave out so much,
including what voters think of apresident’s honesty a nd trustwor-
thiness, as well as whether they
agree on his policies on issues like
health care, the environment and
a whole range of things.”
About 44 percent of voters say
the economy has improved dur-
ing t he Trump administration, ac-
cording to a recent Washington
Post-ABC News poll. But in “Blue
Wall” states Michigan, Minneso-
ta, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,
voters give Trump a -21 percent-
age point net rating on health
care, according to a poll released
this week by the Kaiser Family
Foundation and Cook Political
Report. This tension has made it
hard for some forecasters to pre-
dict how Trump might fare.
Democratic lawmakers and a
number of experts also dispute
that the economy gives Trump a
decisive p olitical a dvantage. They
point out that bankruptcies in
farm country are rising and wagegrowth has remained sluggish.
More Americans are homeless or
without health insurance over the
past two years, among other
trends that hurt the working
class, such as persistent poverty,
high income inequality, a nd a dev-
astating opioid epidemic.
“Given the structural inequi-
ties embedded in our society,
Democrats’ agenda is as relevant
at 3 percent unemployment as it is
at 7 percent,” s aid Jared Bernstein,
a former economic adviser to Joe
Biden. “It doesn’t obviate the pro-
gressive agenda at all. There are
lots of people and lots of places
that have been left behind.”
The White House has still re-
ceived some unambiguously good
economic news compared with
the summer, when there were
growing fears that the economy
could be sliding into a recession.
Manufacturing output was weak-
ening. Trade tensions with Chinawere at a high. The stock market
gyrated wildly. Sen. Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.), echoing many
economists, warned of a “coming
economic crash.”
But since August, several key
variables have gone the adminis-
tration’s w ay. The Federal Reserve
has cut interest rates, generating
additional spending in the econo-
my. Two measures of U.S. business
activity, after tanking over the
summer, leveled off in the fall.
Trade tensions appear to have
subsided.
Recent Commerce Department
data show the economy is slow-
ing, but it is still growing, appear-
ing to steer clear of a recession for
now. Gas prices and inflation are
low. The stock market h as hit new
heights.
At the same time, Trump’s
Democratic opponents have in-
creasingly called for far-reaching
government interventions in theeconomy. Kevin Hassett, who re-
cently stepped down as chair of
the White House Council of Eco-
nomic Advisers, said Trump will
lay out a “second-term agenda”
that presses the contrast with
Democrats’ economic agenda.
White House advisers and con-
gressional Republicans have be-
gun discussing the contours of a
second tax cut package.
Trump may turn to pointing to
the number of people who have
gotten insurance by becoming
employed, Hassett said.
“It’s ironic: Ty pically, it’s at the
peak of a financial crisis, when
markets are collapsing, that you
see demands for radical change,”
Hassett said. “He’s going to focus
on the state of the economy and a
different version of what to do for
the next four years.”
White House advisers and Re-
publican allies in Congress be-
lieve that Trump can help himself
by celebrating the economy’s re-
surgence. But getting the presi-
dent to do so may prove difficult.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he has
urged Trump to talk more about
how “the economy is on fire” and
not get distracted by other issues
but suggested the president does
not always listen to these pleas.
“He always takes it in,” Scott
said of his push to get Trump to
focus on the economy, “and then
goes and does whatever he wants.”
Voters tend to base their vote
on how the economy performed
in the year leading up to the
election, rather than evaluating a
president’s economic perfor-
mance over his four-year term,
said Matt Grossmann, a political
scientist at Michigan State Uni-
versity. That suggests a downturn
could still hurt Trump. Gross-
mann cited the example of Ronald
Reagan, who presided over a weak
economy in 1982, when the unem-
ployment rate was 10.8 percent.
But in November 1984, when Rea-
gan faced voters again, the unem-
ployment rate had fallen to
7.2 percent.
“The economic performance of
a president still matters, but in a
polarized and partisan environ-
ment, it’s mattering a lot less,”
Grossmann said. “Many voters
used to have little to go on to
evaluate the president other than
how things were looking on the
economy. Now, they rely on much
more.”
[email protected]As recession threat fades, Trump hopes economy can propel reelection bid
PHILIP SCOTT ANDREWS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Despite an impeachment inquiry and Republican losses at the state level in Kentucky and Virginia this week, President Trump and his
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