"It's the Economy, Stupid" Doesn’t Seem To Be Joe Biden’s Winning Recipe Against Donald Trump.

The fanaticism of American voters seems to have overtaken rationality.

The economy has always been a central issue for American voters. In August 2020, a Pew Research Center poll estimated that 80% of Americans ranked the economy ahead of any other issue, ahead of health care, and even the Supreme Court.

This reality had already been understood long before by a certain James Carville.

James Carville was one of the strategists behind Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996. While George H. W. Bush hoped to take advantage of the war in Kuwait to win a second term in office, James Carville put Bill Clinton's campaign on the economic map with the seminal slogan “It's the economy, stupid”.

Betting on the economy was a winning strategy that saw Bill Clinton elected twice and govern America for eight years.

In 2024, we may wonder whether this strategy will still pay off and whether American elections will still be played out on the economy.