> Doesn’t matter what they think about the economy at large in abstract terms;
It totally does. If they say what they care most about is the economy, but they interpret the economy through the lens of whether their political party is in power, then their actions will be radically different than a theoretically objective voter.
If voters say that their top concern is X, but they act like they are willing to compromise on X for the sake of Y, then we should interpret that as Y actually being their top priority.
I think you are misinterpreting what the voters mean by "economy." It refers to the incomes and expenses and economic opportunities of themselves and their family and friends. It does not mean macroeconomic metrics. I do not believe an individual no matter how dumb can be that easily fooled on those micro metrics; not in the short to medium term.
If your claim were true, the polls would show that Americans' view of the economy is broadly aligned and non-partisan: when inflation goes up, it goes up for everyone. But that's not what polls show. When people are asked about "the economy," the repeat what they've been told, not what they've experienced. Polls repeatedly show a strong partisan bias in evaluating the economy, inflation, and unemployment (as well as crime and other factors). Are you telling me that Republicans actually experience a different economy than Democrats, or should we just go with the obvious conclusion?
Yes, it might be very well be true that predominantly Republican population experience economy differently than the average Democrat population. They do different jobs, live in different geographic locations with varying density and urbanization and have different employment rates/seasonality. Inflation is not a single number and depending on what your life looks like may impact you differently.
P.S. nothing about your conclusion is obvious. Everything cited seems to be referring to one specific period (COVID/Biden era inflation) with no historical analysis, in which case the parties in charge had every attempt to portray their loss as "economy was good but perceived by idiots who didn't know better" so I'll take the analyses with a grain of salt from clearly partisan hacks.
Okay, so you're going to go with the classic "I will disregard all evidence that I don't like by making unsubstantiated claims of bias".
It's not hard to find research that supports conclusions based on polling from different time periods. [1]
Fact is most people don't have enough data points in their personal lives to make any kind of conclusion about the state of the economy. They haven't gotten a raise in two years and their cousin Dale got laid off last week, but no one would extrapolate that to mean the economy is bad.
> They do different jobs, live in different geographic locations with varying density and urbanization
Yes, but they don't typically all swap locations with each other when a new administration takes power. Nevertheless their opinions do swap.
> economy was good but perceived by idiots who didn't know better
> Dude, I literally linked to FEC contributions. "Unsubstantiated" my ass.
That's not evidence of bias, unless, you think that anyone who makes a political contribution is unable to perform accurate research or do their job. Would you casually dismiss the work of a cop or a professor just because they made a donation? If you find a flaw in the research method, let me know.
You're literally looking for any reason to justify your a priori decision to ignore research you don't like. That makes you the partisan hack, not the researcher.
It totally does. If they say what they care most about is the economy, but they interpret the economy through the lens of whether their political party is in power, then their actions will be radically different than a theoretically objective voter.
If voters say that their top concern is X, but they act like they are willing to compromise on X for the sake of Y, then we should interpret that as Y actually being their top priority.