I was about to post only the principal findings from this University of Michigan's Ross School of Business poll, commissioned by The Financial Times and reported here by The NY Times.
"Kamala Harris may be gaining ground on the economy.... [The poll found that] about 44 percent of registered voters trusted the vice president to manage it, compared with 42 percent supporting Trump, within the poll’s margin of error. But of the respondents who watched last week’s debate, 48 percent favored Harris on the economy.
"There are other signs that Americans may be changing their outlook. U.S. consumers increasingly feel better about prices and other economic matters, according to the latest sentiment survey conducted by the University of Michigan."
I was about to leave it at that, but I got tangled up in the poll's entrails and couldn't break free. They took hold of me more tightly since earlier polling had already shown Harris gaining on Trump in the economic arena. A few of them follow, and, usually true of public opinions, some of them are mystifying.
Among respondents, 74% said they "live comfortably," "meet expenses with a little left over," or "just meet expenses." In general, a pretty content crowd. Only 26% said they were "having trouble" meeting expenses, a stat much lower than I would have predicted.
Now when three-quarters of polling respondents tell you that financially they're pretty content, you'd likely surmise that their contentment springs from a pretty good economy, right? Not only is that not so in this business school's survey, it has been not so for many months.
In this case, roughly the same number of contented respondents (that 74%) was discontented (72%) with the U.S. economy, calling it "not so good" or "poor." Another mirror image captured in the poll was that the 27% who described "overall economic conditions" as "good" or "excellent" matched the above-mentioned 26% who had good reason to be discontented.
One secondary finding was that 34% saw "immigration and border security" as the most important issue in the presidential election, topped only by the 58% who said "economic issues, like jobs and the cost of living." Playing third was "the future of Social Security and Medicare," 32%.
A good way to look at all three — immigration being unfavorable to Harris — is that her gains on the economy and the Democratic firewall of entitlements overwhelm the immigration issue.
This finding motivated a silent chuckle on this here writer's part. When asked "how much have you seen, read, or heard recently about Kamala Harris' economic proposals," 62% said "some" or "a lot." When asked the same about Trump, the pollster heard the same 60%, given that margin thing.
Why the chuckle? Harris has been on the stump talking economic policies nonstop and for weeks on end, while just as nonstop Trump has been evacuating himself at rallies in spittingly ferocious defamations of everyone from DOJ's window washers to the president and his Democratic successor.
I'll close on two other positive points of interest; on the first, Harris nearly runs the table. Forty-nine percent of respondents said she would do a "better job [of] representing the interests" of the middle class — the largest class of people who vote. Only 36% said that about Trump.
Then on to other groups Harris pocketed. Just look at this table and her beautiful 10-point spreads on the above question, all the way down until, electorally, the spreads mean little, except for working bigly against Trump.
These stats would seem to outweigh the business school's survey finding of Harris' 2-point within-the-margin-of-error lead on the matter of whom voters' trust to responsibly manage the economy. They will outweigh the one finding and then gradually increase its size, assuming these voters begin connecting quite a few dots they've so far overlooked.
A risky assumption?
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