Facing a potentially historic bloodbath in the fall’s midterm elections, Republicans have settled on a narrative that might save their majorities in Congress—and, perhaps, the presidency. Donald Trump may be broadly unpopular, but the economy is roaring. Unemployment is low, the stock market is (despite some turbulence) high, and the effects of the $1.5 trillion tax bill passed in December are beginning to be felt. The message is simple: Don’t sweat the chaos in the West Wing; it’s the economy, stupid.

Republicans spent millions of dollars pushing this narrative in this week’s special election in Pennsylvania 18th District. At a raucous rally outside of Pittsburgh days before polls opened, Trump told voters, “The economy is the best it’s ever been.” And yet Republican Rick Saccone lost to Democrat Conor Lamb—who ran against the tax bill—in a district that went to Trump by 20 points less than eighteen months ago.



Speaker Paul Ryan has responded to this setback by putting his head in the sand, arguing that Saccone lost because he didn’t publicize the corporate tax cuts strongly enough. (In fact, Saccone’s campaign all but dropped the tax cut line when it became clear that it didn’t stick, and spent the eleventh hour of the campaign making an aggressive culture war push.) Trump, too, will undoubtedly continue clinging to the economy like a talisman, tweeting about its performance constantly and making outlandish claims about its performance at rallies.



Republicans are falling into a political trap that feels familiar—in fact, it’s one that Democrats fell into in the 2016 election.



In a big-picture sense, the economy was looking very good in 2016. Under President Obama’s stewardship, the economy had recovered from the Great Recession. By the time he left office the labor market had added jobs for 75 straight months, a record. While economic growth was never white-hot, it was a steady 2 percent a year. Unemployment, which was at 10 percent when Obama entered office, was less than 5 percent when he left. There was significant wage growth. The deficit had been brought down from almost 10 percent of GDP to just over 3 percent.

