A new Navigator Research poll on inflation suggests President Joe Biden might have an opening on the issue of inflation by attacking corporate greed.
Inflation is proving to be a top issue once again this cycle, and the progressive polling consortium sought to pinpoint how voters would like to see it tackled.
Four policy responses rose to the top among a list of 10:
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58% chose cracking down on corporate price gouging on items like food and gas
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53% prioritized reining in the high cost of health care and prescription drugs
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46% opted for cutting government spending and debt
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45% chose making it easier to buy or rent a home
All other policy responses, such as cutting taxes for families with young children or lowering interest rates on credit cards and loans, fell below 40%.
The good news for Biden and Democrats is that voters also trusted Democrats more to handle three of the top four preferred policies to ease inflation—the exception being cutting spending and debt. Democrats held an 11-point advantage over Republicans on reining in health care and prescription drug costs, a 6-point advantage on cracking down on price gouging, and a 4-point edge on making it easier to buy or rent a home.
But cracking down on price gouging seems like a natural issue for Biden to take up. Voters are already prone to blaming inflation on corporate greed, with 85% of voters endorsing that idea in another recent Navigator survey.
Voters are also more likely to view Democrats as fighting for their needs rather than the desires of corporations.
Donald Trump is also vulnerable to attacks on the matter. In previous Navigator polling, 52% of voters said that one of Trump's most troubling positions was his desire to give the wealthy and big corporations another $2 trillion tax cut.
By framing Trump as an advocate for the very corporations voters already believe are inflating prices, the Biden campaign could saddle him with being on the wrong side of a top economic issue—which usually play well for Republicans. The Biden campaign has already begun to hit Trump on his pledge to extend his tax cuts to wealthy Americans, but a relentless focus on the matter could make it really stick with voters.
“When we tested a number of Donald Trump’s policy priorities in April, one of the most concerning was giving the wealthy and corporations massive tax cuts, while the top concern was that he supports cutting Medicare and Social Security,” Bryan Bennett, lead pollster for Navigator Research told Daily Kos. “Americans strongly oppose a pro-corporate agenda, and after reading about these policy priorities, it moves them away from thinking that Trump has the right priorities for the country.”
In fact, the new survey found that one key group of voters was hyper focused on price gouging: "economically persuadable" voters, described as respondents who don't necessarily approve of Biden's handling of the economy but supported progressive policies on other questions.
Nearly three-quarters of these persuadable voters, 73%, put cracking down on corporate price gouging at top of their list of concerns.
Focusing on price gouging, Trump's alliance with wealthy corporations, and his promises to extend his 2017 tax cuts for those corporations could yield dividends for Biden at the polls in November.
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