The growing odds of a recession before the 2020 election threaten to crush President Donald Trump’s hopes of a second term.
Though still uncertain, such a scenario would be a political gift to Democrats, who have avoided talking about the nearly full employment, record stocks and low inflation so far in the Trump presidency.
Instead, the candidates have highlighted rising income inequality and untenable costs of health care and college to argue that the working class isn’t feeling the boom.
But this week, fears of a broader downturn arose. The S&P 500 sank almost 3% on Wednesday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 800 points in its worst rout of the year, sparked when the 10-year Treasury rate slid below the two-year for the first time since 2007, a harbinger of a possible downturn.
With a global factory slowdown and Trump’s trade war already weighing on growth, the chances that the U.S. will tip into a recession within the next year have risen to 35%, according to an August survey of economists by Bloomberg News.
“Short of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh disclosing membership in the Communist Party, it is hard to think of any development that could undercut Trump more than a recession,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.
“He promised the religious right that he would give them judges and he promised the rest of his base that he would give them prosperity. Take away prosperity, and he won’t have a prayer,” he said.
At least one Democrat took notice of the signs.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, who posted a Medium blog in July about the economic slowdown, tweeted Wednesday that “the warning signs for another recession are flashing. We need to pay attention and act now, while we still have time to avert a downturn.”
Economic trends tend to predict election outcomes, and recessions can be kryptonite for the party in power. In the last century, the only elected presidents who lost re-election did so after overseeing a recession — George H.W. Bush in 1992, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Herbert Hoover in 1932.