Bloomberg host grills Biden adviser about swing state voters' inflation concerns
Senior Biden adviser Gene Sperling was questioned by Bloomberg host Manus Cranny on Wednesday after a recent poll indicated that many swing states are souring on Bidenomics.
Senior Biden adviser Gene Sperling was grilled on Wednesday after a recent poll indicated that many swing states are souring on Bidenomics.
A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday indicated Biden is ahead in only one of the seven swing states that may decide the 2024 presidential election, as pessimism about the economy continues to grow. The poll also showed 1-in-5 respondents believe inflation and interest rates will decrease this year and over 75% of respondents said Biden is responsible for the poor economy.
"This isn’t going to make for great reading this morning in the Oval Office, is it? 'Bidenomics' equals inflation, that is not what 'Bidenomics', the narrative, was supposed to land with," Bloomberg host Manus Cranny told Sperling.
Manus Cranny grilled Biden adviser Gene Sperling about how swing state voters perceive the Biden-era economy.
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"Well, that’s not what it represents," Sperling began as he pushed back against Cranny's description. "And look, I understand this is your poll, you're gonna promote it, but I think overall, there’s been lots of evidence that people are starting to appreciate more of the positive things in this economy."
"If you look at consumer sentiment, for example, current expectations, consumer sentiment is significantly higher, over 25% higher, than it was in November. There was a poll by one of your competitors that showed when people looked at their state, like a state like Wisconsin, that 57% actually saw the economy as getting better," Sperling added.
The Biden adviser then declared, "I do think the following, I do think that in every major economy in the world, there has been a post-pandemic bad feeling about the higher prices that are global everywhere. But what people are going to realize more and more is there’s only one party in our political system, only one major pusher in our political system, for lower prices, and that’s the president."
"How does he convince - one in five people think this will get worse in the swing states," Cranny interjected. "We can talk about the rest of America, but what matters is the swing state voters, the undecided voters, he’s got to convince them, and right now they’re not convinced. How do you change that narrative from now to November?"
"You’re saying this based off your poll," Sperling said.
"It’s a very authoritative poll," Cranny replied.
Gene Sperling pushed back against the poll's credibility multiple times during the interview.
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Sperling argued that in recent elections, when voters actually had an opportunity to "register their unhappiness" in 2022 and 2023, they instead "voted positively" in favor of Biden’s leadership.
"So if you want to talk about what matters most, when people have gone to the polls, they have not registered some opposition to the president," Sperling said. "In fact, this is a period where people will be paying more attention to who is actually fighting for them."
Sperling later added, "There is no doubt ever since the pandemic, we have had global inflation. It’s not — it’s too high in America for typical families going through the gas pump or grocery line. But it has been improving, number one. And number two, we both know that if you look at the G-7, for example, we are growing twice as fast. But are on the lower side of inflation."
Cranny cited some of the larger initiatives associated with the Biden administration, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act, and asked, "How much macro impact will that have in the very near term? Because right now those bold macro policies are not translating really with the polling public at the moment."
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"Well, you know, again, you are responding off your poll," Sperling said. "I really am not here to do polls. But if you are looking at overall polls, there has been a general uptick for the president. I think that overall the Biden economic policy has very much paid for itself."
According to the poll, Biden leads in Michigan by 2. However, Trump holds slight leads in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with larger leads in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina.
On Thursday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) rose well-below expectations in the first quarter of 2024. Meanwhile, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, a key metric used by the Federal Reserve to measure inflation, kept rising.
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Fox News' Cora Colomer contributed to this report.
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