Harris shores up lead over Trump on economy after debate

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Kamala Harris has consolidated her polling lead over Donald Trump on economic issues, especially among voters who watched the presidential debate last week, according to the first big economy-focused election poll since the televised showdown.

For the second month in a row, the FT-Michigan Ross poll showed Harris with a narrow advantage over Trump on stewardship of the economy, with 44 per cent of registered voters saying they trusted the Democratic vice-president to handle the economy and 42 per cent backing the Republican former president. Last month, she led 42 per cent to 41 per cent.

But Harris fared even better with voters who tuned into Tuesday’s presidential debate, which was watched by an estimated 67mn Americans, according to Nielsen.

Of the nearly three-quarters of respondents who said they watched all or part of the 90-minute debate, 48 per cent said they trusted Harris more to manage the economy, compared with 42 per cent for Trump. Among those who said they did not watch the debate, Trump had an advantage, with 41 per cent trusting the former president and just 35 per cent favouring Harris. The poll was conducted in the two days immediately following last week’s debate.

It comes just a few days before the Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut US interest rates, a signal it is confident that a period of high inflation has been vanquished and the central bank is prepared to lower borrowing costs.

The survey results continued to show that Harris is trusted significantly more than her boss, US President Joe Biden, on the economy. Since the Financial Times and University of Michigan Ross School of Business began polling on economic issues nearly a year ago, Biden never beat Trump on the question of who voters trusted more to manage the economy. Harris’s support from 44 per cent of Americans is an eight-point improvement over Biden.

The new polling data suggests Harris may be succeeding in distancing herself from an unpopular incumbent even without articulating a clear economic agenda that differs from Biden’s.

While Biden was bedevilled by persistent inflation, the poll showed Harris is trusted more than Trump to lower the costs of everyday necessities like food and fuel, by a narrow 44 per cent to 43 per cent margin. She is also viewed as more trusted to help the unemployed find a job, by a similarly tight 44 per cent to 42 per cent.

Voters believe Harris better represents the interests of the middle class by a wide margin (49 per cent to 36 per cent) as well as small businesses (48 per cent to 37 per cent), union members (45 per cent to 35 per cent) and blue-collar workers (43 per cent to 36 per cent). Trump was seen to better represent the interests of large corporations (64 per cent to 20 per cent) and the wealthy (67 per cent to 19 per cent) by even wider margins.

“Voters also think [Harris] represents ‘people just like them’ better, and that is important given the tendency of people to vote for the candidate they think will do the most for them,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. When asked which candidate represented “people like you,” 47 per cent of respondents cited Harris while 37 per cent pointed to Trump.

Despite those advantages, voters still believed that they would be better off financially if Trump were re-elected, with 40 per cent saying they would either be somewhat or much better off under his presidency, and just 35 per cent saying they would be better off under Harris.

With less than two months to go until election day, the race for the White House remains close. The FT poll tracker shows Harris with a 2.2-point lead over Trump nationally, but in a virtual tie in the seven swing states likely to decide November’s election.

The latest FT-Michigan Ross poll, however, is likely to be welcomed by the vice-president’s campaign, given Harris and the Democrats have historically struggled to convince voters that they are better stewards of the economy than their Republican counterparts.

Harris has at times stumbled as she tries to articulate her economic vision, including most recently in a rare television interview with a local Philadelphia journalist on Friday. Republicans criticised the vice-president for a rambling answer when she was asked to spell out her specific plans to lower the cost of living.

Harris has walked a political tightrope in recent months as she seeks to distance herself from Biden, who remains relatively unpopular and who has long been unable to convince voters that they are faring well financially under his administration. Just 17 per cent of respondents to the latest FT-Michigan Ross poll said they were financially better off under Biden, compared with 53 per cent who said they were worse off.

The FT-Michigan Ross Poll was conducted online by Democratic strategists Global Strategy Group and Republican polling firm North Star Opinion Research from September 11-12. It reflects the opinions of 1,002 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.