Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, a state Democrats are counting on carrying in the 2024 presidential election, says President Joe Biden can’t rely on touting Bidenomics alone as inflation-plagued Americans sour on the economy.
Walz, a Democrat who supports Biden in the expected rematch with Donald Trump next year, said higher prices for goods and services are coloring many voters’ view of the economy and that Biden needs to challenge the notion that voters were better off under Trump.
“One thing that has to be done on this in a political environment is a little more contrast with Trump to put that stuff to rest,” Walz said in an interview Thursday at Heartland Forward’s summit in Bentonville, Arkansas. “Rather than trying to sell just straight ‘Bidenomics’ that’s working, they may not buy that.”
While the middle class is getting pinched with higher inflation and interest rates, there’s a disconnect with voters saying the economy is bad while they’re personally faring better, Walz said. And there’s a significant portion of the population that won’t give credit to someone of a different political party, he said.
Trump is leading Biden in several key swing states including Minnesota neighbor Wisconsin, as consumers are stung by higher prices, according to a poll last month by Bloomberg News and Morning Consult that also showed voters trust Trump more than Biden on the economy.
Minnesota hasn’t voted for a Republican president since Richard Nixon in 1972, but Republicans have come close to winning in past elections, including Trump coming within 1.5 percentage points of Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Walz said he feels good about his state’s economy and labor market. Minneapolis, Minnesota’s largest city, was the first major metropolitan area to cool inflation below the Federal Reserve’s 2% target after a region-wide push for housing affordability and availability.
Employment levels in Minnesota are roughly back to where they were before the pandemic, but the state ranked in the middle among states for jobs growth in the past year.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari, speaking on Bloomberg Television on Tuesday, said the state’s labor market is healthy but not as tight as it was six months ago — consistent with a “gently cooling” labor market across the country.
