Swing-state voters trust Trump more on economy: survey

Voters in swing states said they trust former President Trump more than President Biden on matters of the economy, according to a new poll.

The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll, published on Thursday, showed 49 percent of likely voters in seven swing states trusted Trump over Biden — who earned 35 percent — on the economy.

Those numbers are even starker for Biden when zeroing in on the independent voters, who could be the determining factor in the 2024 presidential election. About 47 percent said they trusted Trump more, and 25 percent said they trusted Biden more. 

The respondents — from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — selected the economy as the most important issue heading into the next presidential election. Eighty-three percent said the issue was “very important,” and 13 percent said it was “somewhat important.”

Biden did, however, have a slight edge over the former president in other areas within the survey, including climate change (43 percent to Trump’s 30 percent); education (41 percent to Trump’s 40 percent); abortion (41 percent to Trump’s 36 percent); Social Security and Medicare (42 percent to Trump’s 39 percent); democracy (42 percent to Trump’s 39 percent) and health care (42 percent to Trump’s 39 percent.).

On overall favorability, Biden trailed Trump by 4 percentage points in the seven states.

Among the 1,323 respondents who identified as independent, Biden trailed Trump by 10 points — when third-party candidates are included — and trailed him by 8 points in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.

The poll measured voter preferences of 5,023 registered voters across the seven designated “swing states.” It was conducted online from Oct. 5-10 and has a margin of error for the full sample of 1 percentage point.

“Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: last year, Bloomberg, who published today’s poll, predicted a ‘100%’ likelihood of a recession only to say days ago that the U.S. economy is strong and ‘defying the odds,’” said Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesperson, in a statement. “Or a year out from the 2022 midterms when they similarly predicted a grim forecast for President Biden.”

“Coming off those historic midterms, President Biden’s campaign is hard at work reaching and mobilizing our winning coalition of voters more than one year out on a winning, popular agenda,” Munoz said. “We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”

Updated at 9:25 a.m.