Clip: Republicans and Democrats focus on economy messaging heading into final week of campaign

Yamiche Alcindor : I also want to turn, of course, as we talk about sort of McCarthy possibly getting the gavel, and I want to run to the midterm countdown, which is also, of course, part of this. Already, more than 12 million Americans have cast ballots in early voting, and President Biden and Democrats are shifting their closing argument and warning more than ever that the GOP -- that if the GOP wins control of Congress, the party would gut Medicare and social security, shutdown the government and send the economy into a tailspin.

Here is President Biden in Upstate New York on Thursday.

Biden : If Kevin gets his way in a Republican Congress, tax credits, the low energy bills, gone, corporate minimum tax, gone. Under the Republican plan, some big corporations are going to go back to paying zero again. That's the plan. I would argue it is reckless and irresponsible and it would make inflation worse if they succeed.

Yamiche Alcindor : Meanwhile, economic data released this week showed encouraging growth but slowing consumer spending. That mixed news comes as Republicans are hoping for a red wave with GOP candidates arguing that they are better suited to fight inflation.

Here's Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who is running re-election against Democrat Charlie Crist, during a debate on Monday.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) : While we know that these are the effects of the Biden/Crist policies, the worst inflation in 40 years, and Charlie Crist votes with Biden 100 percent of the time, and he says that Biden is the best president he's ever seen.

Yamiche Alcindor : And joining our conversation is Amara Omeokwe. She's an economics reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much for being here, Amara.

And I want to start with just what are you hearing from economists about where we are heading, what's going on with the report that was released this week and how that squares with what the political messaging that we are hearing.

Amara Omeokwe, Economics Reporter, The Wall Street Journal : Right. So, the DSP report did show growth for the third quarter, and that was welcome news we did have economic contraction in the first two quarters of this year. But as you mentioned, consumer spending did slow and economists were talking about that, because consumer spending is such a key driver for the economy.

And we also saw other signs that the economy is slowing in that report, for instance, residential investment was down very sharply as well. And that is just reflective of what the Federal Reserve is doing. They have been lifting interest rates, and that has really had an impact on the housing market. We've seen mortgage rates really spike, we've seen a slowdown in home sales, we've seen home prices started to come down.

And so the question is, is that slowdown going to spread to other parts of the economy? Are we going to start to see higher unemployment? Are we going to start to see more pain in other parts of the economy. And many economists, a number of economists do expect that what the Fed is doing will cause a recession in the first half of 2023.

Yamiche Alcindor : And, Amara, I also want to ask you about some reporting that you have done for The Wall Street Journal about black voters in particular who, of course, are a key constituency for Democrats. You talked to them about their concerns. That, of course, includes the economy, abortion, social issues. What are you learning about what black voters in particular are concerned about and how that sort of is connected to what Democrats want to do here in the midterms?

Amara Omeokwe : Right. So, reporting that story was really interesting because we looked at survey data. And what we found was that black plaque Americans were saying that social issues, like public safety and abortion, were just as important to them as the economy and inflation as they consider their vote this fall, whereas the broader electorate places a much heavier emphasis on the economy and inflation. So, those were just sort of really -- those results just kind of really struck us.

And when we are talking to voters in Georgia, we heard the same thing. We heard voters talk about gun violence and how that was just as important as what we are seeing with these elevated prices. And I asked an economist about that. I said, what could be driving that dynamic? And he said we have to remember where black Americans were at the beginning of the pandemic. We saw black unemployment spike to near 17 percent.

Fast forward to now, we have black unemployment down under 6 percent and we've seen income growth for black Americans, we've seen labor force participation really improve for black Americans. And so those kinds of gains could be shaping sort of how they view the economy and how weigh these other social issues that are pressing in society right now.

Yamiche Alcindor : Yes. And, Zolan, I want to come to you, because, obviously, the president and Democrats are shifting the -- actually, they have always sort of talked about Republicans and the fears that they have over social security and Medicare but now really beefed that up. What's behind this shift in tone and in messaging and how much of a difference can it make that 12 million people have already voted?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs : Yes. The White House would say that they've been talking about trying to lower the deficit for months and that they have often talked about pointed job growth in the wake of this report pointing to soaring inflation, but we are seeing a little bit of a change in focus, right?

I mean, early in the summer, particularly after the Dobbs decision, you saw, and Democrats will tell you, the White House officials will tell you, allies of the White House, that the Democratic Party looked at that decision as a galvanizing moment, a moment to energize the base. Recent polls have indicated that even especially in places like battleground states, Nevada as well, you still have Ohio, too, the economy tends to be the top concern right now. The New York Times as well issued a poll saying that the economy does tend to be the top concern for voters.

Now, look, voters are complex as well. And you can care about a lot of different issues and policies at this point. But there was an interesting schedule two weeks ago for the president, where one day he was in D.C. He made a speech saying he would codify Roe. It was right here on Washington D.C. And I remember there was some criticism -- or not criticism but some questions from observers of should the White House continue to be focusing on this issue when the economy is still such a concern for voters. The very next day, you also saw -- and it was pre-planned, but the next day, you saw Biden talk about gas prices and going into the Strategic Petroleum Reserves in order to try and make an impact on gas prices.

So, you are seeing the White House conscious of what the polls indicate now, that, yes, people obviously are concerned about the Supreme Court decision, particularly in the Democratic Party, but you can be concerned about multiple issues at this point, inflation among them.

Yamiche Alcindor : Talking about multiple you'd be concerned about, Scott, I know that you went in deep on Virginia, in particular, and Elaine Luria, who is, of course, a member of the January 6th Committee. Tell me a little bit about what she told you about the political stakes there and how does that dovetail to what you are hearing from the Democrats?

Scott MacFarlane : There are any other number of dozens of House Democrats trying to hold on to their seats this cycle in very competitive races, in some cases, and some of the issues are all kind of the same in every district. They're arguing about abortion rights, about the economy, gas prices, grocery prices.

This one has an asterisk. It's different. In the Virginia's second district, by Virginian second beach, Elaine Luria is trying to hold her seat, that she has a national profile now. She was on the January 6th committee, she gained notoriety across the country and two things were clear covering her close election race. One, she is far more recognizable in her district than before when she was on that committee. Even among her constituents, she is better known now.

The second thing is it's far from clear any voter's care. She's mentioning this. She's asked about this during debates. She mentions it on the stump. But she recognizes it is a grocery price kind of world right now voters. It is pernicious issue, hits you every Saturday morning at the checkout and it's hard to get past that. So, she is balancing and calibrating her speeches accordingly. Let's see. If she transcends with other Democrats' experience because she has that high profile of trying to protect democracy.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs : I find it just as interesting what -- to this point, what candidates are not talking about at this point just as what they are talking about. My colleague, Jim Tankersley, went to Georgia and he noted how you've had allies of the White House, allies of President Biden saying throughout the year -- we've reported this, too -- throughout the year, hey, you passed the stimulus package, you passed infrastructure, now you got Inflation Reduction Act, lowering prescription drug prices, you guys should be -- chips, you guys should be out talking about these things, talking about these plans for the economy.

But there is an interesting Catch-22 in a ways because some of those same policies are being pointed at by critics as fueling inflation as well, particularly the stimulus package. So, it's interesting. In Georgia, you had a debate between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. The economy, at one point, was barely mentioned. And Jim even asked Raphael Warnock about the stimulus package and child tax credit, which do have the approval and support of so many voters and then there was a pivot directly to Roe and abortion.

Yamiche Alcindor : Well, as we're talking about this, I want to put up a map for you, Ashley. It's showing where all the former presidents are going to be. You have Biden, Obama and Trump going. You have Biden, if we can put it folks. You have Biden in Pennsylvania and Florida, Obama going to Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and you have Trump in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio. You have also, apart from this map, Chuck Schumer was caught on a hot mic talking about what sort of candidly what's going on here. What are you hearing from your sources about how different these stories he makes and whether or not Chuck Schumer is right and that they're really having some big problems, especially in a place like Georgia?

Ashley Parker : Well, what we are hearing is that Democrats would have loved to have the election about six weeks to two months ago, because they had this really phenomenal stretch partly based on work that the Biden team had done for months in part out of things that were outside of their control, like the Dobbs' decision. No Democrat would have hoped for it but it was incredibly politically galvanizing.

Right then, you had fruition -- coming to fruition the series of bills that Zolan just cited. Again, they happened over the summer. They happened when you got the votes. But this was started many months ago. You had the killing of Al-Zawahiri, which made Biden's case and that you could withdraw troops from Afghanistan and still maintain a security presence there. This would have been a good time for the election for Democrats.

But things have now started to shift back. Of course, Democrats are thrilled to see surrogates out on the campaign trail, especially someone like former President Obama, but the real issue going back to what we were talking about, there has been through-line, really, for the past year when you ask Democrats even privately is inflation. Nothing else matters when you are driving down the street and every gas station you pass, each a sign for the price of gas is a sign post about how frustrated you are as a voter about rising prices.

Yamiche Alcindor : And, Amara, I want to ask you get you -- we have a minute left here, but I want to get in, which is inflation is a global problem. How much do voters really talk about that and what more do we know about whether or not the fed and their steps that they are supposed to be taking, how that's going to impact this in the U.S.?

Amara Omeokwe : Well, yes, inflation is a global problem, and you do hear the Biden administration mentioning that from time to time, that these high prices that we have are not a uniquely U.S. problem. The Fed is going to meet next week and they are expected to do another large interest rate hike.

And then I think what people will be looking for is where does the Fed go from there. Will they start to slow the pace of those interest rate increases? Will they start to sort of assess more of whether what they have already done is working as they intend.

But the Fed has been very clear that their priority is bringing down inflation even if it causes some pain for the economy. And you do see Democrats increasingly becoming more and more vocal and asking the Fed to sort of think about what they are doing and think about whether they are being too aggressive, because the concern is that they might to do too much and slow the economy too much to the point where we do get a recession.

Yamiche Alcindor : And, Scott, in the ten seconds we have left, what do you think of Schumer's hot mic moment and what are you hearing from lawmakers about the reality here?

Scott MacFarlane : Let me be clear, we love hot mic moments. We encourage them. Economy is driving -- Ashley is right. If they had this election August 23rd, Democrats would be far more optimistic.

Yamiche Alcindor : And are they optimistically when you hear it from them?

Scott MacFarlane : Cautiously but emphasis on cautiously.

Yamiche Alcindor : Yes. Well, Republicans I talk to, they're confident but all things can change and Democrats are definitely trying to fight. And it will be interesting to see everyone hit the campaign trail in the next 11 days.

So, thanks so much to our panelists for joining us and for sharing your reporting.