Trump could turn the race aroundwith his good jobs news
The national economic picture looks bleak, with unemployment claims still at record highs and the unemployment rate still higher than 8 percent. State-level data, however, paints a much rosier picture for President Donald Trump.
That data shows the national figures are largely driven by bad news from a handful of large states. Themost recent data, from the August employment survey, shows that 34 states have an unemployment rate below the national 8.4 percent average. In some cases, the state rate is well belowthat stillhigh number. Five states have unemployment rates below 5 percent, a level that would have been considered full unemployment before the turbocharged labor market of recent years. In many parts of the country, people are getting back to work relatively quickly.
National unemployment is being driven higher by poor labor markets in a fewlarge states. California, for example, still has an 11.4 percent unemployment rate, and New York stood at 12.5 percent. In all, 10 states — California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, Newjersey, New Mexico, Newyork, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island — had unemployment rates higher than 10 percent. Those states are home to 107 million Americans, roughly 32 percent of the nation’s population. If those economies looked more like the rest of the country’s, the national economic news would be much rosier.
The politically shrewd reader will note that nine of those states have Democratic governors. The one that doesn’t, Massachusetts, also had the nation’s largest drop in unemployment in August, from 16.2 percent to 11.3 percent. This gives Trump an obvious line of attack in the fall. He can easily argue that if you want to work, vote for him. If you want to stay at home, vote blue.
Democrats will surely cry foul, noting that some Republicangoverned states are experiencing significant increases in COVID-19 caseloads. But Trump can easily reply that this simply shows that caseload spikes can be managed without destroying the economy. Swing states Arizona and Florida, for example, managed caseload spikes this summer and still were able to reopen their states quickly. August unemployment dropped to 5.9 percent in Arizona and 7.4 percent in Florida. Expect Trump to cite these and other red state examples as proof that America can have safety and jobs with Republican governance.
The relatively good data for the bulk of the country could be one reason Trump’s job approval rating is on the rise. The Realclearpolitics poll average shows Trump has a 45.3 percent job approval as of Friday morning, up significantly from his 41.1 percent low point in mid-july. That’s still not enough for him towin, but as election analyst
Sean Trende recently pointed out, Trump can win the electoral college with an approval rating as low as 46 percent. Trump’s rate of improvement could easily have him at that level or above on Election Day. Indeed, two recent political science models forecast that Trump is on pace to garner between 49.1 percent and 49.7 percent of the two-party national popular vote. Trump received 48.9 percent of the twoparty vote in 2016when he broke the blue wall and captured the presidency.
There’s no assurance these trends will continue. The novel coronavirus could come back with a vengeance in October, and unemployment could rise again. Regional outbreaks in states Trump touts as success stories could undermine his message. Other news stories, such as the impending Supreme Court nomination fight, could drive changes in Trump’s job approval rating more than the economy. Unknowns — both known and unknown — to use former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s words, could easily shape the presidential race’s final days.
That possibility doesn’t detract from the reality of the unemployment data. The news on the ground in most of America is better than the national rate indicates, and that can’t be bad for Trump. If he can take advantage of that reality at Tuesday night’s debate, perhaps the race is about to take another sharp turn.