A Majority of Voters Now Say It’s Trump’s Economy

To hear President Donald Trump tell it, he’s responsible for the good parts of the U.S. economy. The bad stuff? That’s on his predecessor.

But according to Morning Consult’s latest survey, fewer voters than ever believe former President Joe Biden is responsible for the state of the economy as Trump passes his 100-day mark in office, underscoring the limits of his attempts to shift Americans’ blame away from his own policies.  

A slim majority of voters (53%) say current economic conditions are mostly the result of Trump's policies, up from 46% in March and 39% in February, when voters were more willing to give the current president the benefit of the doubt.

Between February and March, Democrats and independents increasingly attributed economic conditions to Trump’s policies as Republican voters grew even more likely to blame Biden at a time when the Republican president’s tariff policies were beginning to shake markets.

But this time around, GOP voters drove much of the shift toward Trump, becoming far more likely to associate the current economic conditions with their party’s president and far less likely to cast the blame on Biden than they had been in February or March.

The bottom line

Voters’ perceptions of Trump’s responsibility for the country’s economy are moving in lockstep with their increasingly negative evaluations of his stewardship of it. It’s clear that voters don’t like what they’re seeing from the party in power, which in the near term holds the biggest implications for Republicans in Congress.

Since our first survey of Trump’s presidency, Republicans in Congress have surrendered a double-digit trust advantage over Democrats to handle the economy. That’s tracked pretty closely with the 18-percentage-point drop in Trump’s net approval rating (the share who approve minus the share who disapprove) on the economy, with voters slightly more likely to disapprove than approve after a mild uptick over the past week that followed improving U.S. stocks and April’s better-than-expected jobs report. 

But the president’s trade war continues to weigh on Trump and his Republican allies. Our latest survey showed that by a 7-point margin, voters are more likely to disapprove than approve of Trump’s handling of trade, a record low in our surveys since he took office in January, though on this issue and the broader economy, Washington’s GOP trifecta continues to get solid marks from its own base.

With the economic impact of Trump’s trade agenda not yet fully felt, these data points suggest elected Republicans in Washington could feel more pain in the coming months given the consistent gap between the shares who think the White House should focus on lowering costs and who believe it actually is.

For industries looking for relief from Trump’s economic policies, the good news is the president and congressional Republicans are having a tough time disassociating from the state of the economy when it comes to the larger electorate, setting up a notable pressure point given Trump’s ongoing efforts to blame his predecessor.