There are increasing signs that the economy is improving. And that could pose a challenge for Republican efforts to reclaim the White House.

Positive economic news demonstrated by the latest jobs report—unemployment rate now down to 5 percent, a slight uptick in hourly earnings, and over 270,000 new jobs added in October—could dilute the years-old GOP argument against the Obama economy and bolster likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s push to build upon the administration’s policies.

A year out from Election Day, Republican presidential candidates hoping to take the White House from Democrats next year find themselves engaged in a balancing act: welcoming improvements for the sake of the country while also asserting that a Republican president would be better for the economy.

The challenge was on display during the fourth Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee on Tuesday, hosted by Fox Business Network in conjunction with the Wall Street Journal.

Moderator Gerard Baker of the Wall Street Journal noted that the Obama administration has added an average of 107,000 jobs per month, and that the Clinton administration added 240,000 jobs a month while the George W. Bush administration added just 13,000 a month on average.

“If you win the nomination, you’ll probably be facing a Democrat named Clinton,” Baker asked Carly Fiorina. “How are you going to respond to the claim that Democratic presidents are better at creating jobs than Republicans?”

Fiorina responded by telling the story of a mother she met on the campaign trail who goes to bed each night afraid for her children’s future. “This government has been growing bigger and bigger, more corrupt, less effective, crushing the engine of economic growth for a very long time,” the former Hewlett-Packard CEO said. “This isn’t about just replacing a Democrat with a Republican now. It’s about actually challenging the status quo of big government.”

While Fiorina offered a broad critique of both parties, Hillary Clinton has recently honed in on the premise of Baker’s question. “It must be difficult preparing for debates knowing that when you have a Democrat in the White House, the economy does better,” Clinton said during a recent campaign stop in New Hampshire.

“Nobody on that stage wants to say, ‘I want to restore the George W. Bush administration’—and that’s not their objective,” says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

“[But] this recovery has not been good by the numbers: People out in real America didn't see their paychecks go up or their jobs be more plentiful,” Holtz-Eakin says.

Strategically, Republicans should argue that the recovery has been mediocre and that the party cares deeply about how fast the economy grows, he says. “On the whole, it’s still a good place for Republicans to be. While the report was strong, it is, in the end, only one jobs report and there are other indicators labor didn't do well in October.”

Republican presidential candidates often argue that while the current unemployment rate is low, it doesn’t adequately reflect the overwhelming number of people who have dropped out of the workforce or that workers’ paychecks aren’t growing.

And while consumer confidence has risen, poll after poll shows voters still believe the country is on the wrong track, and they are still anxious about the economy.



Fiorina and other GOP candidates have argued for tax reform (including lowered rates), reduced federal regulations and cutting government bureaucracy, changes that they assert would trigger greater economic growth.

Ted Cruz has argued for a 10 percent flat tax, which he said during Tuesday’s debate would create 4.9 million jobs new jobs over a decade. Over the past seven years under the Obama administration, the economy gained nearly 9 million new jobs.

Marco Rubio has advocated for expanding the child tax credit as a way to help middle-class families, even though, as the debate moderators pointed out, it would cost as much as $170 billion a year. Rand Paul pounced on the cost, calling it a welfare transfer, while hitting Rubio for simultaneously supporting increased military spending.

Jeb Bush has campaigned on doubling economic growth to 4 percent, a goal deemed overly ambitious by many economists.

When asked about that goal during the debate on Tuesday, the former Florida governor tried to draw a contrast between the Democratic administration and a Republican one, arguing that current policies won’t do enough to increase GDP growth.

“Hillary Clinton has said that Barack Obama’s policies get an A. Really? One in 10 people right now aren’t working or have given up altogether. That’s not an A. One in seven people are living in poverty. That’s not an A. One in five children are on food stamps. That is not an A,” Bush said. “It may be the best that Hillary Clinton can do, but it’s not the best America can do.”

But part of the GOP’s challenge in addressing the economy, some conservative economists say, involves spotlighting specifics.

“You can’t just say things are terrible and Obama didn't do a good job and things suck,” says Michael Strain, deputy director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Instead, candidates need to articulate a conservative vision for addressing issues that are currently affecting voters, what they can do to help improve their lives now. “It’s incumbent upon Republican candidates to talk about things beyond macro-economics.”

Democrats have picked up on this also, and hope that their proposed prescriptions for the economy, including an increase to the federal minimum wage and increased taxes on the wealthy, will gain traction beyond the Democratic primary.

As protesters gathered outside of the debate theater in Milwaukee on Tuesday in support of a $15 per hour minimum wage, none of the candidates at the prime-time forum said they would support such a hike.

President Obama has accused Republicans of focusing on “doom and gloom” when it comes to the economy. “Everything is dark and everything is terrible. They don’t seem to offer many solutions for the disasters that they perceive but they’re quick to tell you who to blame.”

The strategy worked for Republicans in the midterm elections last year that gave the party control of the U.S. Senate. While there were signs of the economy improving then, voters didn’t necessarily feel it in their personal lives and Republicans were successful in pinning the blame on the president.

But GOP strategists warn that it’s harder to make that case in the presidential election.

“People want an optimistic, but not a fantastical, vision, speaking to people's aspirations, and not just saying the economy is going to collapse,” says James Pethokoukis, a fellow at AEI.

While Republicans can argue for faster results, they risk entering dangerous territory by focusing too much on the past.

“Republicans have not fully grasped that for a lot of people, their last memory of a Republican administration was an economic catastrophe,” says Pethokoukis.