'The landscape is very different': These 3 issues Trump is running on now favor Democrats

14 August 2024

Former President Donald Trump was hoping to take back the White House by hammering President Joe Biden on three big issues. But given the combination of Vice President Kamala Harris' ascendancy and data not backing up Trump's arguments, the wind has largely been taken out of his sails.

In a Wednesday analysis for the Washington Post, columnist Philip Bump remarked that the three key issues for Trump — crime, the economy and immigration — are now making less sense for him to run on given the wealth of new data showing that Democrats are objectively making significant progress in those areas. Bump wrote that as the 2024 election cycle is now in its final three months, Trump risks driving more voters to the Democratic side by harping on issues where they have demonstrated effective leadership.

"[T]he current numbers are a reflection of how the ground under Trump’s feet has shifted. He’s running against the first half of Biden’s administration, when Biden was his opponent and crime, inflation and immigration were acute problems," Bump wrote. "But now, to his chagrin, it’s 2024. The landscape is very different."

On the issue of immigration, Trump has ran on mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants, and has accused the Biden administration of overseeing a porous southern border. But since Biden signed an executive order more tightly regulating asylum applications, illegal border crossings have slowed to a trickle. Last month, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) recorded the lowest number of monthly border crossings since 2021. Acting CBP commissioner Troy A. Miller stated in July that Biden's policies "have made a meaningful impact" on the agency's ability to curb illegal border crossings.

Biden is similarly beating expectations on the economy. Trump has based his 2024 economic message on runaway inflation rates leading to higher prices for groceries and gasoline. But on Wednesday, inflation rates slowed to 2.9%, which is the first time in three years that month-to-month inflation has been below 3%. In the meantime, wage growth was at 3.6%, meaning Americans' pay is, on average, outpacing price growth.

In fact, Trump's immigration policy may end up feeding into a narrative that he would be worse for the economy. In June, journalist Eleanor Clift explored how Trump deporting millions of immigrants would end up causing significant economic damage, as several critical sectors of the economy are particularly reliant on immigrant labor. Should Trump win and deport large numbers of immigrants, it could create a void in the labor market, slow productivity and result in higher prices for Americans as a result.

And while Trump has tried to depict America under Biden's leadership as a haven for crime, the actual data paints a far different picture. Bump noted that while violent crime was high in 2020 and 2021 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the most recent data shows that violent crime rates 2023 and 2024 are at the lowest levels seen in decades according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association (a coalition of law enforcement professionals).

"FBI data released in June showed a similar year-over-year decline, as did data the bureau released in December. When the agency released its data for 2022, it showed a decrease in crime that year — contrary to Fox News’s coverage," Bump wrote.

Trump's Republican allies have lately encouraged him to focus less on insults and more on policy differences with Harris. But according to Bump's analysis, he may have difficulty doing so given the shortage of data backing up his arguments.

"[Trump] intended to run against Biden and the Biden administration’s track record on crime, immigration and inflation," Bump wrote. "But none of those attacks is as potent as it was two years ago."

Click here to read Bump's full analysis in the Post (subscription required).

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