By Zeke Miller and Seung Min Kim -
The Associated Press
“Are you better than four years ago?”
Voters have rarely had so much trouble answering that question.
Former President Donald Trump wrote that question in all caps on Monday in a post on his Truth Social social network.
President Joe Biden asked the same thing three times throughout the week, during his three fundraising events in Texas, which ended his tour of the southwest of the country.
Each of the candidates hopes that the answer will be in their favor.
But the verdict may well depend on whether people think about the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of their pocketbooks, or some broader sense of well-being.
Four years ago, the country was in a national lockdown due to the pandemic, with rising unemployment and a faltering stock market.
Now, the virtual candidates of both parties are heading into a new confrontation, but now the virus is just a traumatic memory for most Americans, the markets are on the rise and unemployment is at or near historic lows.
President Joe Biden descends from the presidential plane on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Jacquelyn Martin / AP
If handling a once-in-a-100-year pandemic defined the 2020 presidential race, voters now appear to have other issues on their minds as they weigh their 2024 options.
“Speaking of Donald Trump, a few days ago he asked the famous question at one of his events: 'Are you better off than you were four years ago?'” Biden told his donors this week: “Well, Donald, I'm glad you asked that question.” ask friend, because I hope everyone in this country takes the time to remember what March 2020 was like.”
From that moment on, Biden began reciting a long list of the darkest moments of the early days of the pandemic, when emergency rooms were overflowing, frontline workers risked their lives to care for the sick and some of They were forced to use garbage bags due to a lack of personal protective equipment.
Trump, for his part, cast a larger net over the American people.
[Trump stated that if he does not win in November there will be a “bloodbath.” He was talking about a trade war with China, he explains]
“During the Trump Administration, you were better off, your families were better off, your neighbors were better off, your communities were better off and your country was much, much better, that's for sure,” the former president said during a campaign rally a few weeks ago. .
“America was stronger and tougher and richer and safer and more confident.”
“Now they have wars that would never have happened,” said the Republican.
“Russia would never have attacked Ukraine.
Israel would never have been attacked.
“You would not have had inflation.”
The question of “are they better off” dates back to the 1980 presidential race, when Ronald Reagan posed it to then-President Jimmy Carter during a televised debate and catapulted himself to the White House.
In an AP-NORC poll last month, just 24% of Americans said they were better off now than when Biden took office, while 41% said they were worse off and 34% said neither. other.
The majority also noted that the country in general and the national economy were worse than when Biden became president.
Biden's collaborators assure that this question—like any other poll of presidential performance—has become mired in the partisan debate.
They say their internal polling has shown that voters tend to block out their memories of the pandemic unless they are brought up, and that when asked about Trump they tend to think about the years before the pandemic hit and not about 2020.
Insisting that they are focused on meeting voters where they are, the Biden team had no intention of posing Reagan's question to voters.
But as soon as Trump did it, Biden was quick to reply.
In a speech to wealthy donors from Texas, Biden recalled that four years ago morgues were being installed outside hospitals because many people were dying, unemployment was rising, the stock market was sinking and supermarkets were empty.
Trump, at the time, was ignoring the advice of his public health experts and recommending unproven treatments.
“Remember when he said to inject yourself with bleach?” Biden asked in Houston.
After some chuckles, the president continued: “I think he should have done it.”
[Trump intensifies his anti-immigrant rhetoric and baselessly claims that Biden is trying to “overthrow the US.”]
At the same time, Biden's team released an ad highlighting some of Trump's most controversial moments from 2020, such as the bleach comment, the "10" he used to rate his own response to the pandemic, and his “it is what it is” to talk about deaths from the coronavirus.
Trump's national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confronted Biden's claims in a statement.
“Joe Biden and his allies in the media can put out all the numbers they want on the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, but Americans know that Biden has been a disaster and that they were much better off under President Trump, right which is why he continues to crush him in the polls,” he stated.
Trump got dismal ratings from voters four years ago for his handling of the pandemic, which cost him the presidency;
More than 1.1 million people in the country have died from COVID-19.
However, most of those deaths occurred during Biden's presidency, as he struggled to contain new variants and boost vaccines that were developed under Trump.
Therefore, the “precise” answer to whether voters are better off than they were four years ago may be multifactorial.
“Today, the answer is unequivocally 'it depends,'” said Republican strategist Alex Conant.
“The pandemic is over, but no one blames Trump for causing it nor is he credited with the vaccines that helped contain it.
The economy is doing well, but only after a streak of historic inflation that people are still upset about.
“That is why, for most voters, the answer is not clear, and that is why the outcome of the election itself is not clear at this point.”
He added: “I don't think any voters want to return to the dark days of 2020, but judging by the polls, most don't like 2024 very much either.”
In some ways, many voters felt better during the pandemic, thanks to economic aid.
Their bank accounts grew, while coronavirus-related shutdowns kept inflation and interest rates extremely low.
Average annual incomes increased with each of the three rounds of pandemic aid.
According to economists at the University of California, Berkeley, in March 2021, the bottom 50% of Americans saw their average disposable income after inflation soar to $46,000 as they received relief money. Biden against the coronavirus.
That average has since dropped to $26,100 in March 2023. As a result, people may feel worse off, even though their income is actually higher than it was before the pandemic hit in early 2020.
However, Biden intends to keep the contrast with Trump at the center of his re-election campaign.
“The problem is not just reviewing where Trump had the country.
It’s where he wants to take us now,” she told donors.
“Friends, it's not about me.
“It’s about him.”