Part of the problem is that people ALWAYS feel economically pinched. The vast majority of people essentially live up to the edge of what they can afford to, whether they should or not, and that means they inevitably feel like money is tight. That essentially means that outside of universal economic greatness, the non-incumbent party is always going to have an advantage in that respect.
I definitely agree with the last paragraph but it's easier said than done. The working class voters tend to move the goalposts when we try to meet them where they are on messaging. Harris was consistently saying she wanted to improve things for working class families, lower taxes for working class families, etc. None of it mattered because people thought the economy was bad and blamed the current administration. I'm not convinced there is any economic message at all that would have worked at all this cycle. 2/3 of people said the economy was doing not good or bad. No amount of promises about what she would do in the future would have worked; the only way to win on the economy would have been to change voters' mind and make them think the economy was actually already good. And I didn't think that's possible.
Also, I can promise you this: a large chunk of those 2/3 are magically going to start saying that they feel like the economy is great and that they're doing better in January 2025. There's a real chicken vs egg issue here with whether it's the message or the messenger. A huge chunk of voters are just going to say that they feel like the economy is bad when Dems are in power, no matter what. (And probably there's some of that going the other way too, but probably not as much.)
