Would Harris or Trump do a better job on the economy? Voters split in new poll

WASHINGTON - As the 2024 presidential election inches closer, neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump appear to have a decisive edge with the public on the economy, according to a new poll. 

About 4 in 10 registered voters say the former Republican president would do a better job handling the economy, while a similar number say that about the Democratic vice president, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 

About 1 in 10 voters don’t trust either candidate, and a similar share has equal faith in them, the poll found.

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The finding could be a warning sign for Trump, the Associated Press reports, as the issue of the economy was once a clear strength for him. 

Trump has tried to link Harris to President Joe Biden’s economic track record, and the new poll suggests that Harris could be escaping some of the president’s baggage on the issue. A separate AP-NORC poll conducted in late June, before Biden’s debate with Trump, found that about 6 in 10 Americans disapproved of his handling of the economy. 

Earlier this year, Americans were much more likely to say that Trump's presidency helped the country in the cost of living and job creation, compared to Biden's.

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What voters say about the economy and its importance

The economy is one of the most important issues for about 8 in 10 voters, the new AP-NORC poll found – surpassing other top issues like health care and crime.

The aftermath of inflation's spike in 2022 to a four-decade high has been apparent throughout this year's presidential contest. Shoppers are upset over their high cost of groceries, while higher interest rates are financially squeezing the buyers of homes and vehicles. All that has appeared to matter more to the public than the low 4.2% unemployment rate and stock market gains.

Only about one-third of voters say the state of the national economy is somewhat or very good, according to the AP-NORC poll. They're more optimistic about their own situation, with about 6 in 10 voters saying their household's finances are somewhat or very good, the poll found. 

Both of those numbers have remained steady over the course of the year, despite falling inflation, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, Harris and Trump have clashing ideas about how best to straighten out the economy, but neither campaign has fully explained how its plans would be implemented. 

Harris insists her plans would be fully funded and not add to the deficit, while Trump's team says that growth will be high enough to offset the cost.

What Harris has said about the economy

Harris believes that big corporations and the ultra-wealthy should pay more in taxes — and wants to use those revenues to help spur the construction of 3 million homes and offer tax breaks for parents.

She’s hoping to deliver on the types of policies that Biden has been unable to secure in a lasting way.

First-time homebuyers could get $25,000 in down payment assistance that would be coupled with broader policies to encourage the construction of 3 million additional homes in four years. New parents could get a $6,000 tax credit and an expanded child tax credit.

"When working- and middle-class Americans have the opportunity to earn more, to build a business, to buy a home, to climb the economic ladder, it strengthens our economy and helps us grow," Brian Nelson, a Harris adviser, said earlier this month. 

All of her spending plans would be funded, according to the Harris campaign. Officials with her campaign have suggested that her sources of revenue would largely mirror Biden’s 2025 budget proposal.

But the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that her policies would add $2.3 trillion in spending. It forecasts that her plan to increase the corporate tax rate to 28% would produce $1.1 trillion in tax revenues. The group did not include other proposals such as taxing the unrealized income gains of people worth $100 million or more, as there are not enough details to produce an accurate number, according to the AP. Nor did it include other revenue increases.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model suggests that the Harris plans would hurt growth more than Trump’s would through 2034, though it excluded his proposed tariffs from the analysis.

What Trump has said about the economy

Meanwhile, Trump sees tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy as essential for promoting more investment, with those who’ve previously advised him saying average growth would top 3%. 

Overall economic growth never hit 3% a year when Trump was president, but between 2018 and 2019, the median household income jumped by $5,220 to an inflation-adjusted $78,250, according to the Census Bureau.

"What I tell people all the time: The Trump policies were designed to lift middle-class wages, re-onshore and re-industrialize," Joseph LaVorgna, an economist who worked in the Trump White House, told the AP earlier this month. "The intention is to get wages higher."

Trump suggests growth would come from tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy leading to more investment, while a universal tariff would direct that investment to building U.S. factories.

Trump has proposed a broad tariff of 10%, but at an August event in North Carolina he suggested it could be as high as 20%. Against Chinese products, he would like a tax of somewhere between 60% to 100%.

The Republican insists his tariffs wouldn’t jack up inflation, but the whole goal of the tax is to make imports more expensive so that more manufacturing occurs domestically. Critics say the middle class would face a higher tax burden, with the 20% tariff applied broadly costing a typical household $4,000 annually.

The Trump campaign did not answer questions about how the tariffs would work, the AP reported. If the goal is to bring jobs back from overseas, the tariffs would presumably be phased in over time so that manufacturing jobs could return to the U.S. But if the goal is to raise revenues, then they would be implemented immediately.

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The Source

The AP/NORC poll included 1,771 registered voters and was conducted between Sept. 12 and Sept. 16, 2024. It used a sample drawn from the NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for registered voters is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. The Associated Press contributed to this story, which was reported from Cincinnati.