By Vice President Kamala Harris is catching up to former President Donald Trump on the number of voters who trust her handling of the economy, according to a new Financial Times/Michigan Ross poll.
The monthly survey found that 42% of voters trust Harris on economic issues, one percentage point more than the Republican presidential nominee. It is a razor-thin lead that falls well within the poll’s margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points. The poll, released Sunday, surveyed 1,001 registered voters from Aug. 1 to Aug. 5.
Other polls have found Trump significantly ahead of Harris on economic issues. The most recent CNBC All-America Economic Survey, for example, found voters think they will be financially better off under Trump than Harris by a 2-to-1 margin.
Still, the FT/Michigan Ross result signals a possible shifting dynamic for the Democratic ticket: Last month, only 35% of voters said they approved of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy, lagging behind Trump’s 41%.
Since Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris, the vice president has reset the dynamics of the matchup against Trump, enjoying a surge in donations, volunteers and rally attendance.
Even through the election shakeup, however, the economy has remained a defining issue for voters who consistently cite inflation and the high cost of living as their top priority in national polls.
Three weeks into her presidential campaign, Harris has yet to unveil a formal economic policy platform, though she said Saturday that would be released in the coming days.
In the meantime, voters and donors alike are left to wonder to what degree she might diverge from the current administration, which regularly bears the brunt of the blame for public dissatisfaction with the economy.
Among the FT/Michigan Ross survey respondents, 60% said Harris should either fully cut ties with Biden’s economic policies or “make major changes” to his agenda.
Trump often seizes on voters’ economic pessimism as a political tactic, working to turn economic danger signs into narratives of full-blown catastrophe, attributable to the Biden-Harris administration’s policies. For example, when markets plunged last week, heightening fears of an imminent recession, Trump quickly took to Truth Social to label the moment the “Kamala Crash.”
Attaching the Biden-Harris administration to voters’ downbeat economic attitudes has tended to work for Trump. The FT/Michigan Ross poll found that 42% of voters say they would be “much” or “somewhat” better off in a hypothetical second Trump term, compared with 33% who say the same of Harris.
