(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden is adopting an election-year message that zeros in on addressing voter concerns about affordability and high prices in a bid to boost his economic case to voters.
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As Biden’s reelection effort begins in earnest, the White House and campaign aim to highlight his efforts lower prices of household goods and launch a new housing affordability push, according to officials familiar with the plan, showcasing tangible benefits for consumers after previous efforts to sell his handling of the economy faltered.
Biden on Friday visited Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, to test out the refined approach, visiting a series of small businesses.
“If you notice, they’re feeling much better about how the economy is doing,” Biden said when asked why his message was not resonating with voters. “What we haven’t done is let them know exactly who got it changed.”
Biden’s messaging blitz hinges on whether consumers buy it.
Voters have consistently blamed Biden for high prices, weighing on his approval ratings. And while Biden aides say the worst of inflation is behind them, Thursday’s consumer price data showed it ticking up in December, underscoring the risks to their approach. Global supply chains also face pressures from attacks on Red Sea shipping that threaten new price increases.
Biden’s Case
The pitch for a Biden-led economic rebound, as viewed by the president’s team, was straightforward: unemployment has been below 4% for nearly two years, the economy has defied recession forecasts and wage growth has outpaced inflation recently. To boot, the Federal Reserve is poised to cut rates.
Yet strong indicators and market performance didn’t translate to optimism among voters, for whom inflation remained the biggest concern. And after months of awkwardly citing strong economic data in the face of polls persistently showing consumers believed the economy is in bad shape, the White House’s strategy has evolved.
“The president is very bullish on the US economy, and has been delighted to see ongoing gains for American workers, but he also is very focused on the challenges of affordability,” top White House economic adviser Lael Brainard said. “He’s going to keep pushing on everything from groceries to housing to gas.”
Affordability will be a key part of his election-year approach, according to administration officials who requested anonymity to discuss internal strategy, though they said it is too early to say how heavily his State of the Union will focus on costs.
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Biden faces an uphill climb. More than half of those surveyed in seven swing states trusted Republican frontrunner Donald Trump to handle the economy compared to 33% who preferred Biden, according to a December Bloomberg News/Morning Consult survey. Asked to rank their top three economic priorities, 60% cited “the cost of everyday goods.”
Grocery prices in particular hang over Biden. In Pennsylvania Friday, Democratic Senator Bob Casey nodded to price worries.
“A lot of those costs at grocery stores are high because of one reason, corporate greed,” he said.
While the White House is eager to cast corporate leaders as responsible, a rebound with voters may be fueled by a different factor — actual price drops. Consumers are paying less now for staples like chicken, eggs, milk, and gasoline.
The most noticeable decrease has been at the pump. Gasoline has fallen to an average of $3.07 a gallon, down from as high as $5.02 in mid-2022.
Trump Contrast
One of Biden’s most welcome pieces of news came last month, when two consumer confidence indicators surged, signaling pessimism was fading. Other indicators show that inflation expectations have also subsided. “You look at the consumer confidence measures, they’re way up,” Biden said Friday.
In private conversations, the president has bristled at recession forecasts and hailed cooling inflation as a vindication of his policies, according to the officials. He always thought inflation was being driven more by supply chain snarls that could be fixed than his government spending programs, they said.
Still, consumers are seeing prices that remain dramatically higher than before the coronavirus pandemic and mortgage rates that can push housing out of reach. And while voters are feeling better about the economy now, that progress is fragile and could be easily undercut by hints of weakness.
“What the Biden team is, I think, trying to do is convince people they’re wrong, and that is a losing argument,” said Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman who was Trump’s acting White House chief of staff. “Folks at home think that, when you tell them inflation is over, prices are going back to where they were before.”
Trump is planning to push to extend tax cuts for working class and middle earners, in a battle for blue-collar votes. Biden’s campaign has been eager to run their economic record against Trump’s. The Trump campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Trump would “gut investments in the middle class in exchange for tax breaks for the rich, raising costs for families and shipping jobs overseas,” campaign spokesman Seth Schuster said. “That’s the choice.”
–With assistance from Kailey Leinz, Nazmul Ahasan and Laura Curtis.
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