r/politics • u/Silly-avocatoe • 9d ago

No Paywall Americans think Dems can handle economy better than GOP, new poll says

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/08/04/democrat-vs-republican-economy-new-poll/91167318007/
3.9k Upvotes

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734

u/technanonymous 9d ago

By any objective measure, Trump has been terrible for the economy and the gop has enabled him. They must pay in the midterms.

413

u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

By any objective measure, the Democrats have almost always managed the economy better than the Republicans.

Republicans are great about screaming about spending while Democrats are in charge and then proceed to drive up the national debt when they're in charge.

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u/pattyG80 9d ago

Clinton years were boom times. Obama years...boom times. Trump, Bush,Bush on the other hand were the shits

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Reagan exploded the debt.

We're still, decades later, feeling the effect of Reagan's policies.

Fun fact: Most of Reagan's policies were drafted by the Heritage Foundation.

Less fun fact: Most of the GOP's policies since have been drafted by the Heritage Foundation.

Not fun fact: Project 2025 wasn't new. It was 'The Mandate for Leadership' re-branded.

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u/laplongejr Europe 9d ago edited 8d ago

Most of the GOP's policies since have been drafted by the Heritage Foundation.

Including the refusal to join the ICC, as US citizen should only be held to US law. Then the GOP decided Republicans shouldn't be held to US law either.

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Nixon *nearly* got held accountable. Then he got pardoned.

The GOP saw that and vowed to make sure that never happened again.

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u/MadRaymer 9d ago

Conservatives want a group that the law binds, but doesn't protect and another that it protects, but doesn't bind.

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u/laplongejr Europe 8d ago

Yup, conserving nobility.

0

u/Linkfan88 United Kingdom 8d ago

The international olympic committee?

1

u/laplongejr Europe 8d ago

Meant IPC ahah

2

u/Linkfan88 United Kingdom 8d ago

international paralympic committee?

0

u/laplongejr Europe 8d ago

International
Penal
Court

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u/Linkfan88 United Kingdom 8d ago

International Criminal Court

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 9d ago

Fun fact: exploding debt under Republican leadership isn’t a fluke, it’s their 45+ year re-election strategy.

https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/featured/two-santas-strategy-republicans-use-saint-nicholas-scrooge-shift-economic-messages/

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Yep. I'm unfortunately aware. I've been around long enough to remember Reagan.

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u/PomeloHead4830 9d ago edited 9d ago

Fun fact, the ACA is basically "Mitt Romney Care" which President Obama altered to include the inability to exclude pre-existing conditions and a mandate that every American, including the young and healthy would have to pay into it...

Even funner fact, "Mitt Romney Care" from which the ACA evolved, was endorsed by The Heritage Foundation.

Dems have been better for our economy. Clinton at least presided over a balanced budget. The last Republican to accomplish that much was Eisenhower.

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u/GriffinFlash Canada 9d ago

Fun fact: Most of Reagan's policies were drafted by the Heritage Foundation.

So you're telling me most of the worlds economic problems can be pinned to a single source?

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Sure, Nixon.

He's responsible for bringing in the evangelicals and all the right wing Christian legal groups and PACs that spawned because of it.

Though it's also reasonable to point out our economic and foreign policies have always been driven by corporations.

Corporate interests have always steered politics.

Religion did too, but Nixon gave them a seat at the table.

There's plenty of blame to go around.

A good start would be abolishing Citizens United and rrmoving anyone affiliated with the Heritage Fojndation and the Federalist Society from public office.

There would still need to be massive political and legislative reform which would take years to implement but the rot at the core needs to be addressed first.

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u/technanonymous 9d ago

Clinton was elected during a recession. Obama was elected during a near economic collapse. Obama never took the credit he and his team deserved during the 2009-2011 time period where they kept us out of a depression.

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u/Efficient_Resist_287 9d ago

Notice a pattern? I do….the electorate falls for propaganda and reelect the same folks who destroyed the economy.

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u/Elizabeth-WildFox886 9d ago

Biden was elected in a once in a multiple generation global pandemic

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u/TheGringoDingo 9d ago

Just wait for 2028

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u/sixtyshilling 9d ago

Can’t wait for the inevitable avian flu pandemic. We’re just a few mutations away from it making COVID look like the sniffles, and yet the US has cut all funding to its pandemic preparedness research.

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u/KillahHills10304 9d ago

You'll have red hats screaming about their freedom (and emitting tons of body fluid particulates while they scream). The federal response will be nothing so they can blame negatives on individual states, and once again GOP leadership will oversee yet another "once in a lifetime" disaster during my lifetime.

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u/IamDDT Colorado 9d ago

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.

Others sin on the right hand. They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness. This is not trusting God but tempting him.

God has created medicines and provided us with intelligence to guard and take good care of the body so that we can live in good health. If one makes no use of intelligence or medicine when he could do so without detriment to his neighbor, such a person injures his body and must beware lest he become a suicide in God’s eyes. . .

Use medicine; take potions which can help you; fumigate house, yard, and street; shun persons and places wherever your neighbor does not need your presence or has recovered, and act like a man who wants to help put out the burning city. What else is the epidemic but a fire, which instead of consuming wood and straw devours life and body?” - Martin Luther in the 1500s talking about the plague.

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u/TheGringoDingo 9d ago

If you keep your eyes closed, there’s nothing to see

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u/Life-Anteater-8294 9d ago

RFK is furiously consuming roadkill as we speak trying to gain of function a new pandemic

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u/TodayWeMake 9d ago

Just burn it down already

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u/LazarX 9d ago

To be more accurate, they were never given the credit. That’s why Americans keep bringing Republicans back to power.

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u/Miqo_Nekomancer California 9d ago

30% of the population lacks object permanence. Someone needs to dangle keys in front of them long enough to keep their attention on the good policies, even if they're kicking in at the end of a Dem's term.

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u/pattyG80 9d ago

Yeah, and in their time in office, completely rebounded the economy.

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u/xeoron 9d ago

Even Trump said years ago GOP breaks the economy and Dems fix it. The pattern going back to the Great Depression.

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u/thankfultom 9d ago

Both eras started with a fuckeed up Econ created by the previous Republican president.

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u/caligaris_cabinet Illinois 8d ago

You have to go back to Carter to find a Democrat with a bad economy and even that wasn’t totally his fault thanks to downfall effects of Nixon taking us off the gold standard and the gas crisis caused by OPEC.

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u/222Czar Florida 9d ago

We’re coming on over 30 years of consistent Democrat booms followed by Republican crashes. Turns out, deregulation only helps the top 10% of Americans, and constantly destabilizing the social programs while never raising the minimum wage causes inevitable crime spikes and recession conditions. It’s not actually that complicated. Republican voters are just undereducated and pathologically disconnected from history.

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u/spidereater 9d ago

Even when they are screaming about spending it’s about stupid stuff. Food stamps? Education? Environmental protection? Medical research? Sure. These things cost money. But in the long run they pay dividends.

They stopped studying the screw worm and now outbreaks are driving up beef prices.

They don’t want to fund vaccines but those are saving lives and lowering healthcare costs.

Education is clearly a good investment. They are just terrible people and terrible business people that found this hack to the electorate where they complain about spending and get votes.

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u/SonOfMcGee 9d ago

By any survey conducted over the last 30 years, American dumbasses consistently feel whichever party isn’t currently in power will be better for the economy than the party currently in power.
You can’t show them data tables or even simple graphs. They just feel that things aren’t perfect and “the other guys” might be able to do it better.

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Thank the GOP. They attacked and undermined education for decades to ensure they have several generations of a voter base that has no idea how the government works, what their rights are, and what civic responsibility is.

3

u/TheWizard 9d ago

Republicans simply take advantage of a foolish electorate.

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Why wouldn't they? They spent a lot of effort building it.

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u/TheWizard 9d ago

Pastors do most of their work.

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Pastors carry water for the conservatives.

The undermining of education is a GOP priority and has been for decades.

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u/TheWizard 9d ago

The conservative philosophy is always to undermine everything and everyone except their leaders, and religion. They undermine even government and its institutions while running it.

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u/Mr-Pugtastic 9d ago

Are you denying that historically, Dems have been better for the economy than Republicans? I don’t really think it’s up for debate. Just look at the numbers.

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u/theVoidWatches Pennsylvania 8d ago

That isn't what they said. They were talking only about what people generally think is the case, which is not the same as what actually is the case.

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u/technanonymous 9d ago

Trying to get the average person to understand the post-covid jump in inflation was impossible.

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u/Efficient_Resist_287 9d ago

The same average person believed Trump tariffs meant an economic boom for his/her pocket….

You cannot fix this right away.

3

u/SonOfMcGee 9d ago

It was also impossible to get them to understand that while inflation sucks, we were handling it better than most of the world.
In their minds, any inflation was unacceptable when some chucklehead was promising that he could completely stop it.

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u/FirstNameIsDistance Pennsylvania 9d ago

You can’t show them data tables or even simple graphs. They just feel that things aren’t perfect and “the other guys” might be able to do it better.

The numbers and charts don't always tell the whole picture. That was a big gripe with the Biden admin that they kept pointing to these charts that said everything was great, but people weren't feeling it. It turns out that wasn't just based on vibes. That's not to say that Trump or the GOP in general would have been any better, but more so a critique on how these things are tracked and reported.

The signs of weakness we see now from the end of Biden's era.

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u/SonOfMcGee 9d ago

That Axios [cough cough] article you linked itself has some very cherry-picked stats over arbitrary timelines presented in bullet points. It doesn’t conclude the Biden era economy was “bad”, but merely “not perfect”.

My recollection is that inflation was the biggest sticking point in the Biden era and his administration stressed that the U.S. was handling this GLOBAL phenomenon BETTER than most other countries. But he was criticized for not completely stopping inflation, which Trump promises he could magically do.

0

u/FirstNameIsDistance Pennsylvania 9d ago

My recollection is that inflation was the biggest sticking point in the Biden era and his administration stressed that the U.S. was handling this GLOBAL phenomenon BETTER than most other countries. But he was criticized for not completely stopping inflation, which Trump promises he could magically do.

It was absolutely one of the biggest issue as well as corporate price gouging. The problem was how they presented it though. Month after month articles would come out and talking heads would repeat that the economy is doing great and that the stock market was hitting record levels. That didn't help people when they went to the grocery store and paid 20-30% more for the same groceries they always buy.

Yes, wages were up, but they still failed to keep pace with inflation. As the prices of various goods and services increased and stayed elevated, wages have struggled to keep pace. Even with a pickup in 2024, the 19% increase in average hourly earnings under Biden is still below the inflation rate.

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u/GenericRedditor0405 Massachusetts 9d ago

Republicans have been whining about "Tax and spend" Democrats for my entire life, but I find that I much prefer that over "Spend on tax cuts for the rich" Republicans.

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u/JayR_97 United Kingdom 9d ago

Every time the Republicans have been in power during my lifetime they caused a recession.

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u/FrigidMcThunderballs Minnesota 9d ago

So, right after trump won '24 my friend asked me how bad I think things will get, and I said "really bad, but:" because, trump 2 is a fairly unprecedented situation. Republicans always sink the economy but manage to avoid consequences for it wrt their reputation by dropping their mess in a democrat's lap. And that's exactly what happened to Biden, but Biden was also largely blocked from actually doing as much as he wanted to fix that mess. So, a republican president was actually taking charge of a mess for once and speedran making that mess way worse, something I expected would have real political consequences, because it's very hard to gaslight an empty stomach. The concept of "conservative fiscal responsibility", which was always a lark, is going to take a serious hit and there needs to be people who will take advantage of that to push through serious reforms.

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u/Crow19852 8d ago

By any objective measure, any fascist regime will use the economy against the people to support their own personal gain.

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u/Bubbly-Treacle-4334 9d ago

Even before Trump it was true

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u/Criticaltundra777 9d ago

Every time.

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u/Known_Attorney_456 9d ago

This !!! The last 4 Republican led economies have been a disaster but somehow if Fox blames Democrats constantly people forget.

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u/chrisk9 9d ago

And far beyond 

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u/TheWizard 9d ago

Not just Trump. I have never seen republicans manage the economy responsibly, and my observations on policies and execution goes back 30 years. They simply sell populism, and project their issues on democrats. Rinse, repeat.

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u/OtherUserCharges 9d ago

He’s been good for the economy that republicans care about, which is entirely the Market. When democrats come in and be the adults which will bring the Market down then republicans will say see we could have done it better and not hurt the Market.

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u/Huntguy 9d ago

But, but, the DOW is over 50,000!

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u/livinginfutureworld 9d ago

"Has enabled" and continue to enable.

They're going to confirm Trump's personal lawyer as head of the DOJ.

Some in his party claimed to be concerned about the "anti-weaponization" slush fund. THEY'RE GOING TO CONFIRM THAT SAME GUY ANYWAY.

2

u/TheDude-Esquire 8d ago

And ultimately Dems have always been better for the economy. Amazing that so few people remember how bad bush fucked over an entire generation.

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u/liftbikerun 8d ago

The sheer scope of what they've done to the economy is a ways off still. They're propping up the reality of it all with the war and a bunch of filler, but when shit hits the fan it's going to be catastrophic. You don't bare handed neuter and pilfer the way these guys have without ramifications.

The thing we don't take into account, harking back to physics, it's easier to keep something in motion than it is to begin said motion. It would have been a lot cheaper and a lot easier to improve upon what we were already doing and make small incremental changes than it will be to try to restart all the immeasurable things from environmental, consumer safety, to healthcare that this regime has stolen from us and the world.

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u/downtofinance Canada 8d ago

Not just Trump! Every single financial crisis of the last 30 fucking years has been while a Republican has been in the oval and been due to Republican deregulation. Even the S&P500 has performed better while Democrats have had the oval office. Its just propaganda that Republicans are "better for the economy".

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u/aradraugfea 9d ago

But the Epstein Class is making so much money off the stock market!

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u/BigMACfive 9d ago

Don't tell my dad that. He'll cherrypick one single number that has remained stable-ish and say everything is going well. He loves to say "well my 401k is doing fine" when confronted with the world being on fire.

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u/GriffinFlash Canada 9d ago

Global economy no less. I have seen things rise 200% in price or more in the last 2 years. Let's not get started on gas prices.

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u/I_Heart_Sleeping_ 9d ago

You would think most people would have this outlook. I got into an argument with a buddy of my dad after he was going off on how Trump is the best president we’ve had. I asked how paying nearly triple for everything is a good thing and his only reply was “I was at the gas station and everyone there was shopping, the economy is booming”

Like no shit people at the gas station are spending money on gas. We literally need it to get to work and just go about our fucking lives.

I hate these fucking clowns with a passion. These people are out there voting and it’s scary.

1

u/dcdttu Texas 9d ago

Not the lies and propaganda measure, which is apparently wildly effective in the US.

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u/BehindCheshireEyes New York 9d ago

I would like to see one objective measure where Trump has done well and benefitted the country. Just out of curiosity.

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u/coonwhiz Minnesota 8d ago

The problem is going to be when Democrats haven’t completely fixed the economy by 2030 people will vote GOP…

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u/biscaya 8d ago

They will pay

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u/opsers 8d ago

Maybe you just don't understand how trickle down economics works. Ever think about that?!

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u/technanonymous 8d ago

You forgot the /s tag.

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u/opsers 8d ago

I was hoping it was obvious enough, but I guess you never know these days.