The NC GOP’s 2024 messaging dilemma: Is the economy good or bad?

North Carolina Republicans running for state office in 2024 will face a difficult balancing act when it comes to the economy.

They’ll claim that North Carolina’s economy is in great shape because of their tax cuts and frugal spending. But they’ll also have to agree with the GOP’s national message that Democratic President Joe Biden’s policies have created a terrible national economy.

Last week on NBC’s Meet the Press, former President Donald Trump, who’s likely to be the GOP nominee and lead messenger in the 2024 presidential race, described the economy in terms reminiscent of the Great Depression.

“Right now, interest rates are too high – people can’t buy homes, they can’t do anything,” he said. “They can’t borrow money – the banks don’t have the monies.”

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Trump said, “When I left office, we handed Joe Biden the fastest economic recovery ever recorded — all with no inflation. He took that booming economy, and he promptly blew it to shreds.”

How will North Carolina Republicans offer a view of the economy that is both glowing and gloomy? The best effort I’ve seen came from the blog of the Carolina Partnership for Reform, a group devoted to hailing the work of the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Citing an N.C. Department of Commerce report on the state’s low unemployment rate and impressive job growth, the group said North Carolina Republicans had created an “island of economic stability” in the stormy sea of Bidenomics:

“So much for those who want to criticize the wisdom of our economic leaders in how they manage the state’s budget matters. With inflation ravaging families’ nest eggs and out-of-control federal government overspending wrecking our national economy, this report brings a bit of comfort that at least here in our state the job picture is healthy and we continue to be a beacon of opportunity.”

But North Carolina Republicans can’t have it both ways. They can’t even have it their way. The GOP’s national claims of a bad economy amplified by FOX News are drowning out the state GOP’s message of economic success.

A High Point University Poll released Sept. 12 found that 48 percent of respondents said they were financially worse off than a year ago. Only 18 percent said they were better off. Thirty two percent said their financial situation was unchanged.

That negative view persists despite clear indicators that the national and state economies have improved in the past year.

Mike Walden, an N.C. State University economics professor emeritus who studies the state economy, said people are seeing the economy through their experience with inflation rather than weighing the wider trends of job and wage growth and declining inflation.

“That’s the reason people are upset,” he said. “They don’t do the number crunching, but they know their incomes are not going as far.”

The effort to give the economy a political spin may be effective with voters, but only loosely connected to reality. Gerald Cohen, chief economist at UNC’s Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, said the short-term economic effect of political policies is often exaggerated for better or for worse.

Cohen, who was a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury during the Obama administration, said, “Politicians get blamed for a bad economy and get credit for a good economy more than they deserve. There’s a lot of cyclicality that has nothing to do with what the president or a governor has or has not done.”

But policies can have long-term effects. Cohen said growth in the Triangle is attributable to Gov. Luther Hodges pushing for the creation of Research Triangle Park in the late 1950s.

North Carolina’s strong economy today also reflects decisions made long ago to invest in the University of North Carolina and the state’s community college system.

But politicians are not economists. They’ll take instant credit and cast immediate blame for economic trends. And in North Carolina, Republicans will try to do both.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com