Campaign of issues
When investors buy stocks, they are executing an act of faith. They believe that the leadership of the company in which they are investing will grow its business through the accomplishment of goals.
They may or may not personally like the CEO, who admittedly may or may not be likable or admirable. But they aren’t investing in personal friendship; they’re investing in organizational performance.
When voters elect a president, they too are executing an act of faith in leadership capabilities. From time to time, presidential personalities have played an outsized role in attracting independent or on-the-fence voters. This year, however, with both likely candidates posting some of the worst negative ratings in history, that will not be the case.
Which means that faith in performance—the belief that one candidate will get things done better than the other—will be a driving force for that large voting bloc in the ideological middle.
This perspective also helps explain Donald Trump’s persistent popularity. Many Americans view their vote very much like an investor views his money—they expect it to produce results. If they believe Trump will achieve things for the country that President Joe Biden has not or cannot, they will prefer Trump despite his individual vices and failings.
Large swaths of Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump. But equally large swaths have confidence that, despite their distaste of his persona, he can do a better job of solving America’s pressing problems.
What are those major challenges? A week ago, a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll ranked the 30 most important issues the nation faces named by voters. Topping the list were immigration, inflation, the economy and crime/drugs, in percentages suggesting the public is becoming increasingly impatient with the stagnant status quo.
THE BORDER
Perhaps the only thing worse than standing by his unpopular and disastrously ineffective border policies is Biden’s election-year attempt at an about-face. Few believe he’s learned anything; many think he’s only pandering to moderates (figuring his hard-line open-border progressive wing has nowhere else to turn on the issue).
But public confidence is already pretty solidified, and it isn’t on Biden’s side. In the Harvard/Harris poll, Biden’s lowest approval rating was on immigration. This issue is also causing real-life discomfort and dismay among large sections of the citizenry; it was named second on issues voters viewed as most important personally.
Biden’s numbers on immigration in a December 2023 Pew Research Center survey were even lower: 67 percent doubted he could make wise policy decisions on the issue.
THE ECONOMY
Biden’s second-lowest approval rating in the Harvard/Harris poll was on handling inflation, which by a large measure was named as the single most important issue affecting voters personally.
High percentages of the population consistently not only give Biden bad marks for steering the economy wrong, but also give Trump a double-digit preferential lead in being able to turn things around.
Last fall, more than eight in 10 Americans said their cost of living was rising in a USA Today poll; more than two-thirds also believed the economy was worsening. Six of 10 respondents blamed Biden’s policies outright for the economic decline.
In the Pew report, 64 percent of Americans said they had little or no confidence Biden could make good decisions about economic policy.
Yet just this past Tuesday, in a remarkable feat of tone-deafness to public sentiment, Biden touted America’s low inflation and “really strong” economy as examples of his administration’s achievements.
CRIME
Democrats in general hoped to pin history-making spikes in violent crime on the pandemic, but even though coronavirus cases have plummeted, crime rates have subsided only slightly.
In some cities, criminal violence hasn’t retreated at all.
Voters who say they have confidence that Biden can fix the crime problem are few and getting fewer.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently tried to assure people that the Biden administration was starting to beef up local police support for battling crime. But the Department of Justice’s credibility is low: only 17 percent of Americans said they have a lot of confidence in the DOJ in an Associated Press poll last fall.
Furthermore, voters in the ideological center have more confidence in Trump as a crime-fighter.
Stock investments are rarely seen as CEO popularity contests. Indeed, many average investors neither know nor care much about individual top executives in companies with well-performing public stocks. They just want to see progress in their portfolios.
The ballots may read Trump and Biden (to the mutual distaste of the majority) but people will be casting votes in November for faith in improvement. They’ll be voting for a tighter border, a better economy, lower inflation and less crime—a campaign of issues more than candidates.
In the face of that, Democrats seem to be stubbornly fixated on skyis-falling scare tactics about Trump as a tyrant, or on unprecedented prosecutions of Trump as a criminal and insurrectionist, whose election would put “democracy at stake.”
It’s a curious strategy. Jan. 6 ranked 23rd on the Harvard/Harris study ranking of top issues, just behind coronavirus, and didn’t show up at all on personally important issues.