“…despite ample proof to the contrary*, many polls still show voters think Trump would still have an edge over Harris on handling the economy. We can chalk that up at least in part to short-term memory loss of the Trump administration’s chaos, along with [post-pandemic] inflation…” - Hayes Brown/MSNBC Opinion Writer/Editor September 29, 2024 [my italics]

What “ample proof to the contrary”? Per the author’s link, it’s a single blog post, The Historical Puzzle of US Economic Performance under Democrats vs. Republicans, by economist Jeffrey Frankel, in which he writes:

“Blinder and Watson (2016) pointed out another remarkable fact.  They considered the eight times since World War II when an incumbent from one party had handed over the White House to a leader from the other party.  We have had two more presidents by now. Let us update, by adding the records of Trump and Biden (so far).  In five of the last 10 transitions, a Democrat was succeeded by a Republican; each time the growth rate went down from one term to the next. In five of the transitions, a Republican was succeeded by a Democrat; each time the growth rate went up.  No exceptions.  Ten out of ten.  What are the odds of this happening by chance?  The answer is the same as the odds of getting heads on 10 coin tosses in a row…”

In other words, Frankel maintains the Democrat presidents are better at producing economic growth than Republican presidents and chance has nothing to do with it. But Blinder and Watson came to a different conclusion in their 2016 paper:

[The Democrat-Republican growth gap comes] mostly in the first year of presidential term. …Democrats would no doubt like to attribute the large D-R growth gap to macroeconomic policy choices, but the data do not support such a claim…It seems we must look instead to several variables that are mostly “good luck,” with perhaps a touch of “good policy.”

The fact that the growth gap comes mostly in the first year of the presidential term is important, because newly elected presidents require time to implement their initial policies and these policies take time to have an economic effect, not to mention that federal spending for that first year was decided before they took office. So if good things are happening in the first year of the term, how do we know it’s the new president’s doing?

Frankel appears to think that adding the Trump and Biden GDP data strengthens his case. But Trump wasn’t responsible for the Covid pandemic and subsequent recession. And Trump likely contributed to the economy’s quick and steep economic rebound from that recession. Take a look:

True, there was a slight slowdown a few months before Covid hit these shores, but overall economic pre-pandemic growth looked strong. And during that same period, American consumers were pretty happy:

Bottom line: the American people aren’t suffering a “short-term memory loss” about the US economy during the Trump years. They remember the good times before the pandemic and cut Trump a lot of slack for the short-lived economic panic in 2020.

(None of this is saying I’ll vote for Trump but the truth matters and I hate it when scientists and academics obscure the truth and intentionally mislead the public for political ends.)

—

References:

Blinder, Alan S., and Mark W. Watson. 2016. "Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Exploration." American Economic Review, 106 (4): 1015–45.

Frankel, Jeffrey. “The Historical Puzzle of US Economic Performance under Democrats vs. Republicans.” March 28, 2024

“Harris wants to take the GOP's best economic ideas — if they exist” by Hayes Brown/MSNBC Opinion Writer/Editor September 29, 2024