Less than 30% of Michigan voters think they’re better off now than under Donald Trump

Economics is often called the dismal science. And in one key swing state, perceptions of the Joe Biden economy are particularly dismal for the incumbent VP-turned-Democratic presidential nominee. 

That’s one clear conclusion from the American Greatness/TIPP survey taken in Michigan last week.

The vast majority of respondents said they were worse off than they were four years ago during Donald Trump’s presidency, when the Republican was dealing with pressures created by an unprecedented pandemic.

Only 29% of the 1,001 registered voters polled say they are doing better, while 64% — nearly 2 out of 3 — say they are worse off.

The rot extends even to Democratic perceptions of their president’s economy. Just 50% of them say things are better now than they were under Trump, while 39% say they’d rather have the Republicans’ economy back.

However, independents strongly disagree: 21% say they are better off under Biden, while 71% wish they had the Trump economy back. As for Republicans, 82% long for the before-Biden economy.

It’s hard to find folks in this survey arguing they are better off, but there are a couple of cohorts who say so.

A slim plurality of black voters — 45% — say their condition has improved over 2020, compared to 44% who contend otherwise. And 53% of self-professed liberals likewise argue things are better than they were in Trump’s last year, with 40% saying they’re worse. 

Beyond those groups — which one might expect to affirm the success of so-called Bidenomics —skepticism about the economy reigns across the Wolverine State.

That skepticism is borne out robustly in rural areas, where only 21% say they are better off under Biden than they were under Trump, with 70% expressing the opposite view. 

Similar but more subtle splits play out in more populated areas.

Among suburbanites, 31% say they’re better off now than in 2020, while 61% disagree. And in urban areas, 35% think conditions have improved versus 56% who say the contrary.

Ethnic splits are also pronounced here. Just 29% of white men think they’re better off, with 66% saying they’re doing worse.

Yet it’s among white women that Harris has the most ground to make up regarding Bidenomics. An anemic 21% of them think they are better off, and a hefty 71% don’t.

A minor split also plays out between single and married women in this data, though just 1 in 4 females in total think they are economically better off under Biden than Trump.

Among singletons, 27% believe they are better off than they were under Trump, with 66% saying the opposite.

If that’s not bad enough, it’s worse with wedded women, with a cataclysmic 22% reporting they are better off, while 69% say otherwise.

On the bright side for Bidenomics, men are more likely to think the economy has improved for them, but not by much: 33% say they’re better off now versus 60% who believe things were better in 2020.

The data offer some context to Trump’s constant attacks on “communist” Harris, amid proposals to fix prices at grocery stores and raise corporate taxes to 28% (a move that would particularly impact small businesses), with a lot of unanswered questions about what else she would do. 

The former president’s return to the White House very well may hinge on his ability to make a modern version of the Bill Clinton-James Carville “It’s the Economy, Stupid” strategy, given the topline of this poll shows Harris is up 48% to 46% in a two-way race — well within the margin of error.

The survey tracks with the FiveThirtyEight average of Michigan surveys, which shows Harris up by 3 points over Trump.