Although much has changed since the 1992 presidential campaign—when the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” was coined to underscore the link between the country’s economic health and elections—voters will probably still be thinking most about their jobs, their paychecks and the price of groceries when they cast their ballots in November.

November could hinge on the very different ways voters perceive the economy
Photo by Burak The Weekender: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-blue-and-red-graph-illustration-186461/

“If the law of political gravity still works and history is any guide, the economy will be very, very important, probably decisive,” Paul Glastris, editor in chief of The Washington Monthly, said. “And there are almost no exceptions to the rule that a president running with a strong economy gets reelected.”

However, Glastris and his colleagues at a recent panel discussion hosted by the Miller Center, a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia, noted determining the health of today’s economy—and which presidential candidate will benefit at the polls—has not been easy. Different economic indicators are pointing in different directions, and the uneven economy is impacting Americans differently, the panelists said.

Unemployment is low and the stock market is booming, they said, but interest rates are high and even the substantial wage increases that many workers have received often have not been enough to overcome inflation.

Scott Miller, director of the Miller Center’s Project on Democracy and Capitalism, said rather than thinking about how the economy performed under former President Donald Trump versus President Joe Biden, consumers  are comparing the current cost of goods and services to their cost five years ago.

“Even though, indeed, the rate of inflation has come down significantly, the overall prices haven’t regressed in any way,” Miller said. “The prices are still growing in a way that we wouldn’t normally want, and people remember, ‘Oh, I used to buy this and it was 3% less.’”

The panel discussion, entitled “The 2024 Election and the Struggle for America’s Economic Future,” examined how conflicting views about the health of the current economy in the United States could affect campaigns for the White House and Congress. Suzanne Mettler, political science professor at Cornell University, was a panelist along with Glastris and Miller. Sidney Milkis, professor at the Miller Center, moderated the discussion.

Indiana’s economic rankings

Indiana is ranked in the middle to lower portion on many economic indicators for the states, according to STATS Indiana, an online database developed and maintained by the Indiana Business Research Center at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

The Hoosier state recorded an unemployment rate of 3.6% in April 2024 and a median income of $66,785 in 2022, which ranked it 21st and 39th, respectively. Indiana ranked 13th on total exports in 2022 and 19th on gross domestic product in 2023. Also, 2023 data shows the state ranked 20th in new venture capital deals and 26th in the amount of venture capital invested.

Glastris said the country is in a “different world” in 2024, and the relationship between a strong economy and reelection could possibly be altered by social media, the supporters of Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and concerns over Biden’s age. Moreover, he pointed to Elkhart, Indiana, as an example of voters continuing to put Republicans in office, even when the economy is improving under a Democratic president.

Elkhart, in northern Indiana, is the RV manufacturing capital of the world with 44.5% of the workforce employed in the manufacturing sector in 2022, according to STATS Indiana. In the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, the RV industry flatlined, and Elkhart County posted the largest percentage decline in employment in the U.S. from September 2007 to September 2008 with unemployment topping 20%.

Then-candidate Barack Obama visited Elkhart County in 2008 while campaigning for the White House and returned a couple of times after he was elected president to tout his economic policies.

“He would go back (to Elkhart) and give speeches,” Glastris said of Obama. “It was amazing how in his speeches, he showed the unemployment of Elkhart going down and jobs coming back because of his takeover of the auto industry. It had almost no effect on how people voted. It’s a Republican part of the country traditionally and historically.”

Stagnation in rural America

Elkhart County voted for the Republican nominee in the 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections.

Economics is not only a critical factor in elections, but also, according to Mettler, it is a driver of the polarization plaguing the country today.

Mettler, of Cornell University, highlighted her research, which showed urban and rural residents often voted the same way in presidential elections until the late 1990s. Since then, she said, rural communities have suffered economically from deindustrialization, which eliminated many jobs, and deregulation, which led to the closure of many small businesses.

The economy has stagnated in rural areas, Mettler said, and the population is declining as families move away and young people do not return after completing their college educations.

Both Mettler and Miller noted Biden has targeted funds specifically for rural counties in some of his administration’s major economic wins, including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. However, it may not ease the polarization or economic disparity that impacts how people vote.

Other factors are now fueling the split between urban and rural communities, Mettler said, so an improved rural economy may not decrease the divide.

In 2008, residents of rural communities “started to look at people and cities and say, ‘They’re better off than us. They belong to the Democratic Party and they’re creating all of these policies where they’re telling us what to do and they didn’t ask us,’” Mettler said. “Trump comes along and he played on that resentment, that grievance politics, and it played really well in rural areas. And rural areas moved all the more toward Trump in 2016 and 2020.”

Miller said although investments are being made as a result of Biden’s policies, there is a growing lag in when the investments will produce an economic boost. Pointing to the CHIPS Act, he said, a significant amount of time is going to be needed to train and educate the workforce for these high-skilled jobs. In addition, he said, companies that have gotten some of this federal funding are having “significant issues” getting the plants built and staffed.

“In terms of a long-term systematic effect for local or state economies, we’re going to be waiting awhile,” Miller said.

This article was published by TheStatehouseFile.com through a partnership with The Indiana Citizen, a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed, engaged Hoosier citizens.

FOOTNOTE: 

Indiana Citizen Editor Marilyn Odendahl has spent her journalism career writing for newspapers and magazines in Indiana and Kentucky. She has focused her reporting on business, the law and poverty issues.