Money woes could color voting choices
WASHINGTON – Americans are more downbeat about their personal financial situations now than they’ve been in decades, a USA Today/Gallup Poll finds, an attitude likely to dominate this year’s presidential and congressional elections.
A 55 percent majority of those surveyed say their families are worse off financially than they were a year ago – the highest number since Gallup first asked the question in 1976 and a jump of 11 percentage points since February.
Just 26 percent say they are better off.
As the presidential primary season ends today with contests in Montana and South Dakota, the nationwide survey finds Illinois Sen. Barack Obama beginning to consolidate Democrats’ support as the issue landscape for the fall is being shaped.
Obama now edges the presumptive Republican nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, 47 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. A month ago, McCain was ahead 47 percent to 45 percent. Both leads are within the margin of error of plus/minus 4 percentage points.
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton leads McCain by a bit more, 49 percent to 43 percent.
“Politics is more often than not about the economy, and when the economy is bad, that makes for an appetite for change,” says Mark Blumenthal, editor of the nonpartisan pollster.com. “The fight for the next five months will be over who best represents that desire to shake things up and improve the economy and everything else. I think that argument will be the story of this campaign.”
Economic angst is broad. Two-thirds of those with annual incomes of $30,000 or less say they are worse off financially than they were a year ago, but so do nearly half of those in the highest income group, those making $75,000 and more. Two-thirds of those who are 50 to 64 years old say their finances have worsened.
Republicans are the only major demographic group in which more say they are better off than worse off.
The gloomy public mood is “just another piece of the real situation today,” Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally said Monday in a session with USA Today reporters and editors. “We’re going to have to see a stabilization, especially of the housing prices, and get the U.S. economy going again” for that to change.
Pessimism over pocketbook issues traditionally turns voters against the party that holds the White House. That was true in 1976, 1980 and 1992, the past three times incumbent presidents lost election bids. Economic anxiety is higher now than it was then. In 1976, just over a third of Americans said they were worse off than a year earlier; in 1980 one in four did; in 1992 not quite half did.