Has the state of the economy been too politicized?

55% of voters say the economy is getting worse. But has this number been polluted by politics?

Full Transcript:

Scott Rasmussen  0:07  

Good morning, Scott Rasmussen here. Welcome to my podcast, Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. Yesterday, I talked about how difficult it is to find a measure in today's situation that gives us a good sense of how people feel about the economy. You know, the reason is pretty simple. We've never had a situation like this before. The last time there was a pandemic like this, the 1918 Spanish Flu, was before unemployment statistics were kept and it was before the modern era of polling, so we don't have any comparables. And if you talk about a lot of traditional indicators, whether they're official statistics from the government or traditional polling questions, the problem is, you know, they're meant to measure progress and changes in a more or less normal situation, a normal economic cycle on normal recovery. Whatever else the last six months have been, it's certainly not normal. 

So, yesterday I talked about the idea of finding a different indicator. The one that I focused on was asking people whether they knew someone who had lost their job during the shutdown and then been rehired and one of the beauties of that is it hadn't yet been polluted by politics. And what I mean by that is, it hadn't reached the point where Republicans knew how they were supposed to answer for their team or Democrats knew how they were supposed to answer. And so there was a certain beauty, a certain sense that, okay, we can learn something from this about the way people are really seeing the economy around them. At the same time, there is no benchmarks. There's nothing to compare it to. So, what does it tell us? Well, it's just a benchmark for now, and we can look ahead a month or two and see how the trends go. 

Today, I'm going to talk about a different number. It's a more traditional polling question, and it's one that is definitely been polluted by politics. It's one that every election, we can see the numbers flip depending on whether a Republican or a Democrat wins the White House. That number, today's number is 55. 55% of voters say the economy is getting worse. This comes from a survey that I conducted for Ballotpedia. And, you know, it's, obviously we're in some difficult economic times, but what would be surprising to some people, and especially to Republicans, is that the number of people who say the economy is getting worse has actually increased over the last couple of weeks. And to Republicans, that kind of makes no sense because we had this jobs report where people expected 8 million jobs to be lost. Instead, there were two and a half million jobs created. People should be feeling better, but that's not the way it worked out. In the B-block, I'm going to talk about why that happened and what's going on. And I'm also going to talk about why this number matters even though it has been polluted by politics. A lot. Let's face it, this is a polling question that lots of pollsters ask on a regular basis. It's something we're going to hear a lot about between now and November. So it's kind of important to get a sense of what it can tell us and what it can't. Now, as you're waiting for the B-block, you might want to take a moment and share this podcast with your friends. Also, subscribe to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. You can find us at JustTheNews.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. 

Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm Scott and today's number: 55. A survey that I conducted for Ballotpedia found that 55% of voters nationwide believe the economy is getting worse. That's up five points since that last jobs report that showed two and a half million jobs had been created. On the flip side, the number who say the economy is getting better just inched up a couple of points to 24%. So, by a big margin, by more than two to one margin, people right now say the economy is getting worse. But this is a question that has always been polluted by politics. Right now, 50% of Republicans say the economy is getting better. 74% of Democrats say the economy is getting worse. And what's also fascinating about this is since the jobs report came out, Republicans are nine points more optimistic. They're nine points more likely to believe the economy is getting better. On the other side, Democrats are 10 points more convinced that the economy is getting worse. Now, we're living in unpredictable times. And you know, there's not a lot of things I'm sure of, but I am absolutely certain that between now and election day there is nothing that can possibly happen that will make Democrats believe the economy is getting better. Why? Because a Republican's in the White House and there is nothing that is going to change that is going to make Republicans more pessimistic than Democrats exact same thing. If Joe Biden happens to win in November, these numbers, these perspectives will flip immediately, because that's the way it always happens. 

Having said that, there is something that we can gain from these numbers. It's a marginal benefit, but it's still worth taking a look at. And that's, what do Independents think? Now look, most Independents aren't really independent, they lean one way or the other pretty strongly and Republican-leaning Independents, have some pretty Republican-like tendencies and Democratic-leaning Independents go in the opposite direction, but they're not as tethered to the party line. So, as you're watching their responses, you, maybe you're getting a sense of who's winning the economic argument, and that's what's going on here. I mean, let's be clear. The Republican and Democratic numbers that we're talking about that I just mentioned were, you know, half of Republicans say the economy is getting better and three-quarters of Democrats say it's good getting worse. It is because that's the argument that their team needs to be selling. So, right now the Independents are pretty close to the Democrats on this question. 58% say the economy is getting worse and hardly any just about 19% of Independents say the economy is getting better. Well, as we go between now and November, and as more and more jobs reports come out, the number to watch is the number of Independent voters who say the economy is getting worse. I don't think there's any question, there can't possibly be any question, the economy is worse than it was a few months ago. Before the pandemic hit, we were talking about record low levels of unemployment. So, the situation clearly has gotten worse. 

But it's when do these Independents, these folks who aren't rigidly attached to either party, when will they begin to think things have bottomed out and begin to move in the other direction? If the number of Independents who say the economy is getting worse hold steady, you know, look, that's a horrible sign for Republicans on election day. But, if it drops below 50% pretty quickly, if it drops below the 40% level, if we get close to a situation where Independents are, you know, only mildly pessimistic on balance, well, that becomes an indicator that something is changing. And that's something is likely to be a belief that the economy has bottomed out. Maybe the world hasn't come to an end economically and it probably is an indicator that President Trump's prospects for getting reelected have increased dramatically. So, again, you know, this basic number doesn't tell us a lot. First of all, voters are kind of inherently pessimistic, especially when you have a big economic collapse like we did earlier this year. It takes a lot to restore their confidence. One jobs report doesn't do it. In fact, two jobs reports probably won't do it. It'll take report after report after report and at some point, after maybe 20 or 30 million jobs have been restored, people will begin to feel more optimism. But the question is going to be, from a purely political point of view, what does that what do those Independent voters see. The more their pessimism drops, the more the prospects for Joe Biden drop with them. That is going-- and that's why, by the way, both campaigns are going to try and make the argument the Republicans are going to say, you know, this economy would be so much worse if Donald Trump wasn't there, if we didn't have a businessman, if we didn't have all these policies that he put in place before. Think how bad it would be if we hadn't reached those record low levels of unemployment. And Democrats are going to say, yeah, this guy is talking about all the things he accomplished, but the economy's in worse shape than when he took office. So, that's going to be the political debate. And the way you'll measure it through some economic questions is by looking at how Independent voters answer the question of, is the economy getting better or worse at this point in time? Right now, 58% of Independents say it's getting worse. And if that holds, well, you know, not much is going to change. But, if it looks different in a month or two, that will mean the electoral dynamics are shifting as well. I'm going to be back with some more comments on this general topic in the C-block. And again, love to have encouraged you to share this podcast with your friends. And by the way, if you ever want to see the details, the cross tabs and the numbers or some information about how the surveys are conducted, you can go to ScottRasmussen.com. All of our numbers are there and take a look and, by the way, you know, if you have some questions, just write to info@Scott Rasmussen.com and we'll try and help you out. Try to help you understand or find the data that you're looking for. 

Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the day. I'm Scott and today's number is 55. A survey that I conducted for Ballotpedia found that 55% of voters believe the economy is getting worse. That's up five points since that last jobs report. The number who say it's getting better, just 24%. So, right now, the National mood, you might say is kind of pessimistic and given what's happened in the economy in the last several months, yeah, that's a pretty reasonable assessment. But this number, this polling question about is the economy getting better or worse, has been heavily polluted by politics. Right now, Republicans on balance are pretty optimistic. Democrats overwhelmingly pessimistic. Why? Because a Republican is in the White House. And because people know how their team is supposed to answer. Independent voters, well, 58% of them say the economy is getting worse. So, right now they're kind of leaning in the Democratic direction. That'll be a number to watch. If the number of Independents who say the economy is getting worse declined significantly, that'll tell us something is going on in the political world. But it's really important to recognize that this number isn't really about the economy as much as it is about the politics of the economy. And I want to make a distinction between that. And the number I talked about yesterday, which was based on a question of, you know, do you know somebody who lost their job during the pandemic and has been rehired? That question has not been polluted by politics, there wasn't a difference between Republicans and Democrats and Independence. So, the question that we talked about yesterday? Well, that tells us something about the economy. The question we're talking about today tells us something about politics. They're both important. But the analysis matters more than the raw data. And look, that's always the case. And one of the things that bugs me is people blame polls for mistakes when most of the time it's the analysis that's wrong. Best example of that, of course, was the 2016 presidential campaign. A lot of people say oh, man, the polls really missed it. In fact, the polls were really good for 2016. They predicted Hillary Clinton would win a three-point popular vote margin victory. She won by two so off by a point is not so bad. State polls were also much better than is commonly believed.

But that's a story for another day. The point today is when you're looking at the data, make sure you understand what's driving it. When you ask a traditional polling question, like is the economy getting better or worse? That's being driven by politics. When you ask a different question, something that maybe is a little bit outside the normal political dialogue, then you learn something about the economy. I'm Scott Rasmussen, have a great weekend and I'll be back Monday morning with another number.