WASHINGTON — As high prices at grocery stores, gas pumps and pharmacies have soured many voters on his first term, President Joe Biden has developed a populist riposte: Blame big corporations for inflation, not me.
But despite facing a tough reelection battle where economic issues will be central, Biden has not leaned into that message as frequently or naturally as some other Democrats, including senators running in competitive seats across the southwest and the industrial Midwest. The Biden campaign has not focused its television or online advertisements on messages berating companies for high prices, unlike Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who have made the issue a centerpiece of their campaigns — and who are outrunning Biden in polls.
Now some progressives are urging Biden to follow those senators’ lead and make “greedflation,” as they call it, a driving theme of his reelection bid. They say that taking the fight to big business could bolster the broader Main Street vs. Wall Street argument he is pursuing against former President Donald Trump, particularly with the working-class voters of color Biden needs to motivate. And they believe polls show voters are primed to hear the president condemn big corporations in more forceful terms.
“It’s a winning message for Democrats,” said April Verrett, the president of the Service Employees International Union, which is knocking on doors in battleground states as part of a $200 million voter turnout operation. “And clearly, Bob Casey, who’s doing better in the polls than the president, is proving that it’s the winning message.”
Inflation soared under Biden in 2021 and 2022 as the economy emerged from pandemic recession. Its causes were complex, including snarled global supply chains, stimulative policies by the Federal Reserve and, to a degree, federal fiscal policies including COVID relief bills signed by Trump and the $1.9 trillion emergency spending measure Biden signed soon after taking office to help people and businesses hurt by the downturn.
What Republicans call “Bidenflation” has become one of the president’s biggest political liabilities in his rematch with Trump. In response, Biden has sought to simultaneously cheer progress in stabilizing or bringing down prices — growth has slowed sharply from a year ago — while acknowledging the pain voters still feel in their pocketbooks.
Biden has also attacked corporations for pricing practices in certain sectors such as meatpacking, snack foods, concert tickets and gasoline. His administration has worked to limit prices for prescription drugs like insulin and inhalers, rein in bank overdraft and credit card fees and make airline travel cheaper and more transparent, achievements that he often discusses on the campaign trail.
“We’re taking on corporate greed to bring down the price of gas, food and rent, eliminating junk fees,” Biden told a crowd of 1,000 cheering supporters in Philadelphia last week.
Still, leaning into that combative message is not always a natural fit for Biden. He proudly calls himself a “capitalist” and has long had a close, if sometimes contentious, relationship with corporate America.
Some economists close to his White House disagree that corporations’ raising prices to juice profits is a major driver of inflation.
And while Biden delights in telling a folksy anecdote about Snickers bars shrinking in size without doing the same in price, other Democrats have sounded far more aggressive on the issue. The push to blame corporations has united many factions of the Democratic Party, including progressives, swing-state populists, union leaders and environmentalists.
Brown, who represents a state that Trump won handily in 2020, has released several web ads proclaiming he is “cracking down on the companies that rip off Ohio.” Casey cut a campaign ad showing corporate executives in suits sneaking into a grocery store under cover of night and switching out cereal boxes for smaller replacements. Senate Democrats in tight races like Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jacky Rosen of Nevada are making similar pitches.
“President Biden has quite a bit of latitude here to put the blame where it belongs, and he should not be shy about voicing it,” said Julián Castro, the former Housing and Urban Development secretary who ran against Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020. “The alternative is that they’re going to blame you.”
But some of Biden’s progressive allies say the president has found effective — and popular — ways to talk about corporate pricing practices, including his focus on “junk fees” levied by airlines, concert promoters and more. They also say he must balance the issue with a broad set of campaign messages, including on abortion and democracy.
“You’re going to be more focused on kitchen-table issues in a Senate race,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive Groundwork Collaborative in Washington. Biden, she added, is “doing the exact right thing. He’s not focusing on the wonky, eggheaded debates on where inflation is coming from, and he’s focusing a lot more on the ways Americans are feeling and experiencing price increases in their daily lives.”
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