An email from ALG Polling, used by the Clinton campaign, warned their data showed that, under President Obama, Americans felt the economy had little benefit to them and didn’t see any positive benefits that were “tangible in their own lives.”
The survey also found Americas cared more about fiscal responsibility and spending restraint than “investments in education, roads and bridges, and job training.”
The email, from ALG partner John Anzalone and released by Wikileaks, was sent in February of 2015 and warned thar Americans were feeling “pressure of rising costs and stagnant wages.”
“Only 30% nationally and 29% in the battlegrounds rate the national economy as excellent or good,” Anzalone wrote, “and we saw in the framing poll that to the extent people feel like things are improving, they don’t feel like those benefits are tangible in their own lives.”
Anzalone found Obama’s economy had people stressed about “just keeping up with rising everyday household and living expenses.”
“We’re going to run into real headwinds on fiscal issues,” the email warned.
ALG’s data discovered the American people “strongly prefer cutting spending, debt, and regulations (54%) over investments in education, roads and bridges, and job training (38%)” and middle class tax cuts.
Anzalone wrote, “This basic anti-government dynamic both nationally and in the battlegrounds is one of our chief obstacles. We’re going to have to be able to talk credibly about fiscal responsibility, and need to understand going in that Republicans’ message is much simpler to articulate than ours.”
On trade, ALG found, “voters are more likely to believe that trade agreements hurt the economy by shipping jobs overseas (51%) than that they help by opening up new markets for exports (36%). And by a 46% to 39% margin they say that trade agreements will always hurt.”
Clinton had not yet come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), at the time she was a supporter of the deal.