Democrats on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue are choosing to message against national Republicans' economic platform rather than banking on the popularity of President Joe Biden's policies heading into a contentious election cycle.
Biden has spent the better part of the year pitching voters on "Bidenomics," the collective sum of his economic priorities. However, support for the president's economic stewardship continues to fall.
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As of Monday, just over 38% of people approve of Biden's handling of the economy, and Democrats, including some members of Biden's Cabinet, have urged the White House and Biden's campaign to refocus his efforts on warning families about the dangers of voting Republican.
And those warnings appear to be yielding results.
Since the start of November, Biden has all but dropped the term "Bidenomics" from his public remarks and statements, according to an analysis carried out by NBC News. The president has delivered four economics-focused, campaign-style speeches across that time frame, in addition to major remarks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in California.
For comparison, Biden dropped "Bidenomics" more than 100 times in speeches delivered between June and November.
On Monday, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates published a memo titled "The growing MAGAnomics threat of skyrocketing healthcare costs," purporting that the proposals of former President Donald Trump and his supporters will raise costs for families.
"Even though a record number of Americans now have coverage thanks to President Biden's effective management of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and even though President Biden now has Medicare at the negotiating table with pharmaceutical companies working to lower drug costs, congressional Republicans are continuing their fight to tear those life-changing benefits away from families, while also fighting to give big corporations and the wealthy new tax welfare," Bates wrote of the "MAGAnomics agenda."
Furthermore, by crafting their message against "MAGAnomics," White House officials will be able to criticize the former president's proposals in an official capacity without violating the Hatch Act, a law that prevents federal employees from using their offices to influence campaign politics.
The Office of Special Counsel determined that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Bates had violated the Hatch Act by using "MAGA" in statements. OSC determined that unlike "MAGA," Trump's campaign acronym, "MAGAnomics" does not violate the Hatch Act as the Trump administration itself, not his campaigns, used the term to describe its economic policies.
Meanwhile, Democrats on Capitol Hill have kept Biden's preferred messaging at even further arm's length.
Axios reported Monday morning that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Majority PAC have both all but eliminated using the term "Bidenomics" in their fundraising efforts. House Democrats, including Reps. Steven Horsford (D-NV) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC), one of Biden's top campaign surrogates, have also stated they want to see the president shift the focus off himself.
"We have to do a better job framing this not so much for one person — for the office of the presidency — but for the people," Horsford said in September.
"The people that he stands for don't deal with economics," Clyburn added in November. "They deal with day-to-day issues. They have to educate their children and feed their families and develop their communities — and that doesn't sound like 'Bidenomics.'"
Still, the president hasn't abandoned the Bidenomics push entirely.
The term continues to appear on campaign and official White House signage, and the president's speech last Wednesday in Colorado was billed as a dialogue "on how Bidenomics is mobilizing investments in clean energy manufacturing" despite Biden not uttering those words.
White House officials told the Washington Examiner that Biden's priority remains families and that Trump's recent promise to "replace" Obamacare threatens to undercut the post-pandemic recovery overseen by the current administration.
"President Biden is concerned with doing the work to keep costs down for the American people," one White House official explained. "In this case, extreme MAGA Republicans all the way up to the former president are renewing their attempts to raise costs and eliminate healthcare options for American families, and President Biden will do everything in his power to stop them."
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Republicans, however, see the Biden team's messaging shift as a clear sign their side is winning.
"It doesn't take a genius to see why 'Bidenomics' has failed. Seventy-eight percent of American voters rate the economy negatively, according to a new Fox News poll, and most believe the worst is not yet over. Nearly three-quarters of voters across seven key swing states say the economy is on the wrong track; just 35% of them trust Biden on the economy," Republican National Committee spokesman Jake Schneider said in a statement. "Meanwhile, Americans trust to keep the country prosperous by the widest margin since 1991. Maybe telling voters not to believe their living wallets wasn't the best idea after all."