President Joe Biden and his team are going on offense this week on the heels of improving consumer sentiment, movement his allies hope will eventually translate into better feelings about the president’s handling of the economy as he looks toward a rematch with former President Donald Trump.
That push will be on display Thursday with a pair of events in the Midwest, starting with a trip to Superior, Wisconsin, where Biden will be armed with $1 billion in federal funding to replace an aging bridge in the battleground state. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is set to deliver a major speech in Chicago making the case for Biden’s economic vision, including a rare pushback on his predecessor’s approach.
The events come as Biden is gearing up for a general election fight with Trump, whom the president believes locked up the GOP nomination with his New Hampshire victory Tuesday. In a statement after the primary, Biden leaned into the economy as one of the defining issues in November, saying that “our economy — which has seen the strongest recovery in the world since Covid” is among the issues “at stake.”
But so far, Biden’s work to sell the economy – policy rollouts, travel to key states, and ad campaigns on television and online – hasn’t broken through to voters as less than a third say they approve of his approach.
Biden’s allies hope that could soon shift especially with people starting to feel more upbeat about the state of the economy. The University of Michigan’s latest consumer survey showed that sentiment improved greatly this month, soaring 13% from December and reaching its highest level since July 2021.
That coupled with cooling inflation, rising wages and a strong labor market post Covid-era job losses is a message the campaign is eager to tout.
“Voters will be hearing this economic story more…
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