It’s the economy, stupid. So said James Carville when he was advising Bill Clinton in his 1992 presidential campaign and the phrase is as true now as it was 32 years ago. Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris this week for the same reason he lost to Joe Biden in 2020: millions of Americans were unhappy about the economic record of the incumbent party. Two out of three voters this week thought the US economy was on the wrong track – and that spelled trouble for Harris.
The question is whether they will feel any differently at the end of Trump’s second term in the White House, when it ends in 2029. Looking at some of the policies proposed by the president-elect, it is by no means certain that they will.
