Republican presidential debate: Candidates could win with a clear economic message about the 'crisis among working people'

By Victor Reklaitis

'This debate is for the backup. If not Trump, who?' another expert says

When asked about tonight's Republican debate, UCLA expert Lynn Vavreck says she's been reflecting on the stagflation that helped make Jimmy Carter a one-term president.

While today's economy has low unemployment even as inflation persists, rather than the high unemployment, high inflation and stagnant demand of the 1970s, there's still a sense that Americans are "struggling to live the kind of life they want to live," she told MarketWatch. It costs a lot to do things like buy a new car or get a home loan, as homelessness has increased and strikes by unions are on the rise.

"There's this sort of crisis among working people -- that whatever this is, it isn't working for them, and it's not just about jobs," said Vavreck, a professor of American politics and public policy at UCLA.

"So I think there's an opportunity for an entrepreneurial candidate to come along and try to package that in a way that says, 'This is an unusual situation. It's affecting Americans of all ages, urban and rural ... and we need to figure out how to solve it. And nobody's talking about it but me.'"

That's different than President Joe Biden's messages in support of blue-collar workers and unions, and it's different from Republican claims that "Bidenomics" is 100% responsible for today's economy.

"Everybody kind of gets that whatever is happening is bigger than a policy decision that he made in the last three years, but you could say that they have failed to get it under control," she said. And that's similar to how for Carter there "wasn't a crisis of his making, but he failed to make it better."

Jim Ellis, president of election analysis firm Ellis Insight, also said the GOP White House hopefuls should focus on developing a stronger economic sales pitch.

"They need better messaging on what they're doing so that people understand, 'Oh, if I vote this way X, Y and Z are going to happen. This is what they want to do to try to bring down these inflationary prices,'" Ellis told MarketWatch.

Candidates such as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott have rolled out economic plans, but they haven't packaged them well enough so far, according to Ellis.

What's more, the GOP could have performed better in 2022's midterm elections, he said, if more of its candidates had focused on "here's what we're going continue to do and here's how it benefits you," rather than emphasizing "we're not the other side, and here's what they've done wrong."

Haley and Scott are among the Republican contenders expected to take part in tonight's debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, along with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson didn't qualify this time, the Republican National Committee said Monday.

The frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, former President Donald Trump, plans to skip tonight's event, just as he passed on taking part in the the primary's first debate a month ago.

See: GOP debate: What time it starts, who'll be on stage

And read: Trump plans to meet with striking autoworkers instead of attending second GOP debate

How Trump, UAW and shutdown could figure in debate

It doesn't look possible for a non-Trump candidate to have a "breakout moment" at the debate that puts him or her in a head-to-head contest with the frontrunner, according to UCLA's Vavreck. But the debaters should be thinking about scenarios where Trump is no longer in the race because of his legal troubles or because he decides to bow out, she said.

"So the first thing is distinguish yourself from the other people at the stage," she said.

Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, offers a similar assessment on Trump's lead in primary polls of more than 40 points.

"The debates are not important for overtaking Donald Trump today or tomorrow, but they may well be setting the stage for a later challenge in the spring if he were to get convicted," he told MarketWatch. Candidates should try to position themselves as the successor to him, but it's not the setting for criticizing him since primary voters are primarily Trump supporters, according to Jacobs.

"This debate is for the backup. If not Trump, who? That's what this debate is about," Jacobs said.

Trump grabbed the spotlight over the summer thanks to his widely followed indictments in Washington, D.C., and Georgia's Fulton County in election-interference cases tied to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He has denied wrongdoing and argued the charges are politically motivated, as he did with his spring indictments in a hush-money case and a classified-documents case.

Many Republican voters have agreed with his take on his legal troubles and rallied around the 45th president in the past few months, leaving him with 57% support in primary polls, according to a RealClearPolitics moving average of surveys. DeSantis is a distant second with 15% support, followed by Haley at 6%.

The United Auto Workers strike and the looming government shutdown look likely to figure in tonight's debate. Scott, South Carolina's junior senator, already has staked out a stance on the UAW's move, suggesting that he would like to emulate Reagan, who fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981.

"Tim Scott has come out pretty hard against unionized workers. I don't think that's going to be a consistent message," Jacobs said. "There'll be plenty of Republican candidates who are going to be looking to identify with those union workers and let them know that they understand the challenges."

As House Republican infighting has made a partial government shutdown look likely, the GOP White House hopefuls could face a tricky balancing act.

"Rather than criticizing Republicans in Congress for not passing a budget, they may well pivot to, 'It's time to take on spending in Washington and bring it under control. That's what my colleagues in Congress are doing.' I'd expect a message of that sort," Jacobs said.

-Victor Reklaitis

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09-27-23 0926ET

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