What if it’s not the economy, stupid?

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“Stunning”. “Speechless”. These are two of the words that analysts and economists used to describe Friday’s killer jobs report. There were 353,000 added in January, twice what anyone expected, which means that America now has 1.4 jobs available for every unemployed person. That’s far above the historical norm. It’s not too much to say that this is the strongest labour market in modern US history, at least since the 1960s. Even the markets were up, despite the fact that the jobs numbers also mean there will probably be no interest rate cut in March. 

Sure, you can search for the bad news — hours worked were down a bit (though that could have been because of a cold stormy January, which kept a lot of people inside). But honestly, I think it’s becoming harder than ever to argue that the Biden administration’s new supply-side economic policies aren’t working, or that this recovery is somehow a mirage. Wage gains are outpacing inflation, but not by so much that the Federal Reserve has to be too worried at this point. Corporate profits are up, which means hiring will probably stay robust, and consumer sentiment is catching up to all the good news data. Vibecession? I don’t think so. The vibes are pretty darn good at the moment. 

So, what does that mean for the 2024 presidential campaign season? It could be that the battle will be waged not on the economy, but on social issues — such as migration, the border and abortion. If so, which candidate would that benefit?

Let’s take migration and the border first. It’s true that Democrats have been out of step with public opinion on immigration in recent years. An October/November New York Times/Siena College poll found that 53 per cent of voters thought Donald Trump would do a better job on immigration, versus 41 per cent for Joe Biden. But the Republicans are at risk of scoring an own goal here, because of the Trump-induced hold-up of an immigration bill that Biden is backing. The president is trying to push through a bill that would increase border security and unlock money for Ukraine. Even though many Republicans agree with most of what’s in it, the bill is being held up in part because Trump wants to keep the issue of an out of control border alive as a political football.

I suspect this is a losing game. Even some Republicans are saying it’s “immoral” not to address border issues, and Biden, meanwhile, is saying he’ll give Republicans whatever they want, and shut the border tomorrow if they sign the bill. I’m wondering if Biden might start using the Harry Truman “Do Nothing Congress” line soon, since this is the most unproductive Congress in several decades in terms of the amount of legislation that they haven’t passed. I think for a lot of people, the idea that Trump would hold up this bill, which would dramatically increase the police presence on the border, will play badly for him.

What about abortion? On this issue, Republicans have been out of step with America. Sixty-one per cent say it should be legal, according to Pew, and a majority disapproved of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs Wade. There is certainly a partisan gap, with more Democrats holding these views than Republicans, and more women in general holding them. But I think the upshot is that if Democrats make hay with the many horror stories of, say, happily married women in Texas being forced to carry and deliver a dead baby to term, that’s probably not going to help Trump swing anyone outside his base. 

Peter, what are your thoughts on all of the above?

In the latest episode the Swamp Notes podcast, the FT’s Alex Rogers and Edward Luce discuss how money is shaping the 2024 US election. Listen here.

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Peter Spiegel responds

Rana, in the pre-Trump political era, this is exactly how campaigns would slice and dice the electorate. Consultants would look for so-called “wedge issues” that could win over centrists or partisans in the opposing camps. Think of the Reagan Democrats of the 1980s: these tended to be white, working class voters who had been New Dealers on economic policy for generations, but drifted into Ronald Reagan’s camp because of the social wedge issues like welfare, gun control and the perceived cultural excesses of the 1960s.

Democrat Bill Clinton won back the White House by recapturing some of this cultural ground. He vowed to “end welfare as we know it”, publicly repudiated Black musician Sister Souljah for advocating racial violence and flew back to Little Rock in the middle of the 1992 campaign to reaffirm his support of the death penalty on the eve of the execution of a convicted cop killer. 

Seen through that lens, Rana, I think social issues are indeed worth paying more attention to throughout the 2024 campaign. Right now, Biden is suffering in opinion polling because of the lingering impact of inflation and an uneven economic recovery. But over the course of the next eight months, a booming economy is likely to neutralise economic issues as a driver of voter behaviour.

That leaves us with the social wedge issues you mention — where I only partially agree with your analysis. I think you’re right on abortion. Republican women in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Phoenix and Atlanta may be inclined to support low-tax fiscal policies advocated by Republicans, but they clearly have shown in 2020 and the 2022 midterms that Trump’s misogyny and his nomination of pro-life justices overrides any economic misgivings they have about Biden and the Democrats. So abortion is indeed a social issue that plays into Biden’s hands.

But I don’t think immigration is the vote winner for Biden that you do. You’re right that Trump and the Republicans have, in some respects, stepped into a trap of their own making in Congress last week. But your average voter isn’t paying attention. They will remember Trump’s attempt to “build a wall” and his extremist rhetoric on deportations. Like it or not, that’s a wedge issue that plays into Trump’s hand, peeling off Democrats in key working-class constituencies. It also shows no sign of alienating Latino voters, who migrated towards Trump in swing states like Arizona and Florida despite his casual cruelty to Mexicans and other Latin American migrants. 

Which gets me to my final point of disagreement. All this slicing and dicing of the electorate was a useful analytical tool in the pre-Trump era. Does it really matter when Trump is on the ballot? He is such a polarising figure that almost all the “issues” that policymakers debate tend to fall by the wayside. I think most voters will make their choice on whether or not they can handle Trump in the White House for the next four years, regardless of how his policy positions affect them personally.