WASHINGTON — Throughout the election season, Republican Donald Trump has consistently outperformed Democrat Kamala Harris on the issue voters said they care about most — the economy.

Trump, the former Manhattan real estate mogul turned reality TV personality, has broadened his base of support in this election by appealing to the pocketbook concerns of Americans tired of higher prices and higher interest rates, according to national exit polls.

“Are you better now than you were four years ago?” Trump asked at rally after rally in the weeks leading up to the election.

The answer of most voters, according to exit polls, was “No.”

Sixty-seven percent of voters surveyed had a negative view of the economy, and 45 percent said their financial situation is “worse now” than it was four years ago, according to Edison Research, which conducts the poll on behalf of to a consortium of US media outlets.

Four years ago, Joe Biden was elected president as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to wreak havoc on the global economy – the US unemployment rate was 6.4% in January 2021 when he was sworn in, the lack of global of supply has affected US production. , and some businesses closed or scaled back as consumers stayed home.

As Biden prepares to leave office, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent and average hourly wages have risen 22.3 percent since the start of the pandemic in February 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But the data did not ease voters’ worries after inflation rose to 9.1% in June 2022. That rate has since fallen to 2.4%, but prices remain higher than before the pandemic and rising interest rates made borrowing more expensive.

Food is now 26 percent more expensive than it was before the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a new car will cost 20 percent more on average.

“What political scientists tend to find is that what people feel at the end of the first quarter of an election year is what they actually think when they go to the polls,” said Richard Himelfarb, a professor of political science at at Hofstra University, for Newsday. “So the fact that inflation has come down … is not really relevant. The damage had been done.”

Harris’ competing messages

Harris was a self-proclaimed “child of the middle class” sensitive to the needs of working Americans, but her economic message also competed with her argument that Trump was a threat to democracy, an argument that Democrats in her loss recognized since then. little to compel voters concerned about the post-pandemic economy.

Exit polls showed 32 percent of voters ranked the economy as the top issue influencing their vote, followed by 14 percent who cited abortion and 11 percent who cited immigration. The state of democracy came in first at 34 percent, but political scientists said the issue took on different meanings for voters in both parties: For Democrats, it meant viewing Trump as a threat to democracy; for Republicans it meant a growing distrust of government institutions.

“The key challenge for Democrats was that they had to make this a referendum on Donald Trump and not a referendum on the economy. The problem with this strategic imperative is that it ignores the economy, which was the overwhelming issue for voters,” said former Congressman from Long Island Steve Israel, a Huntington Democrat who is now director of Cornell University’s Institute of Politics and Global Affairs.

Israel, who advised Biden’s 2020 campaign and served as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for four years, said that while Harris and Democrats tried to “judge a menu of important issues, including abortion and democracy,” voters continued to signal that misery was the main issue.

“When citizens feel their economic security is at risk, they tend to be more willing to ignore their rights in a democracy,” Israel said. “For them, it’s not an extension of their rights, it’s economic survival. So the issue of democracy may fall short.”

Harris, on the campaign trail, took advantage of Trump’s promises to go after political detractors he called “enemies within” to paint him as “someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed by grievances and looking for a uncontrolled powers”.

The focus on Trump may have played into the victory, said Republican campaign strategist Michael Dawidziak of Bayport, who was a former campaign adviser to the late President George HW Bush.

“She made the same mistake that almost everyone who ever ran against Donald Trump, whether they were his primary opponents in the past or Hillary (Clinton), they all made the same mistake – they spend more time talking about him than them. they’re talking about themselves, and that elevates it in people’s minds. That makes him the most important person in the room,” Dawidziak said.

How Trump won on the economy

Despite the whirlwind of controversy surrounding Trump — a criminal conviction stemming from his 2016 campaign, a pair of federal indictments for tampering with classified documents and his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — they capitalized on Biden’s presidency entering in the race with low approval ratings.

Harris, who had a shortened three-month period to run his campaign after Biden withdrew in July, failed to distance himself from a president whom exit polls show most voters disapprove of. Exit polls showed 58 percent of voters surveyed disapproved of Biden’s job performance, compared to 41 percent who said they approved.

The disapproval ratings came as economic indicators showed low unemployment, falling inflation and a record stock market — but those numbers could not overcome voters’ unease over prices that have risen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and of the high cost of loans. as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to reduce inflation.

“Trump has articulated much better that he would be better on the economy,” Dawidziak said.

During the campaign, Trump unveiled a number of proposals aimed at working Americans, including a proposal to exempt tips from income tax, a proposal to exempt overtime income from income tax, and a pledge to lower rates car insurance.

He also called for tariffs on all imported goods and a revival of the 2017 tax plan that cuts corporate taxes, an agenda that several economists say could lead to inflationary pressures on the economy and an increase in the national deficit .

A Goldman Sachs analysis published in early September estimated that Trump’s tariff plan would increase inflation by 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points, and a report by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business estimated that the series of Trump’s campaign proposals could increase the national deficit by $5.8 trillion. over a period of 10 years from 2025 to 2034.

Trump’s campaign said in an earlier statement responding to critical economic reports that “Trump’s policies are fueling growth, reducing inflation, inspiring American manufacturing.”

With Republicans winning control of the Senate and on track to win a majority in the House, Trump will likely have broad support in both chambers to advance his economic agenda, although he may face some pushback, said William G. Gale, co-director of the Parliament. Nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Fiscal Policy Center and former senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers under HW Bush.

“Trump has promised so much to so many people with taxes that it’s hard to know what to expect,” Gale told Newsday. “Especially to the extent that Congress or the Administration wants to keep the deficit under control and therefore should pay for the tax cuts through increases in other taxes or cuts in spending.”

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is a White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. He joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.