For his entire aborted 2024 reelection campaign, no issues threatened to hamstring President Joe Biden quite as much as the economy and immigration.

The economy is almost always voters’ top issue, and views of Biden’s handling of it were routinely way underwater. Immigration is generally less important in voters’ minds, but a border crisis pushed Biden’s numbers on the issue to historically low levels — to the point where three-fourths of independents and large numbers of Democrats disapproved. One poll early this year showed Americans preferred Donald Trump over Biden on immigration by more than 30 points.

Vice President Kamala Harris replacing Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee has significantly blunted those liabilities for Democrats.

A new poll this week piqued more than a few people’s interest. It came from the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and it showed that about as many Americans preferred Harris on the economy (42 percent) as preferred Trump (41 percent). Such a finding was previously unthinkable, after many months of the economy dogging Biden.

That might overstate how much Harris has mitigated this issue for Democrats. But it’s surely somewhat.

Across three other recent polls to compare the two candidates on the issues — national polls from NPR/PBS/Marist College and Marquette University Law School and a swing-state poll from the New York Times and Siena College — Harris has trimmed between six and nine points off Biden’s previous deficits to Trump on the economy.

On immigration, she has trimmed between four and seven points off Biden’s previous deficits.

That said, she still trails Trump on these issues — by between three and 12 points on the economy, and by between five and 18 points on immigration. And a CNBC poll last week showed that about twice as many voters said they thought they’d be better off financially if Trump wins (40 percent) as said the same of Harris winning (21 percent).

That suggests these key issues remain a liability, just less of one.

Harris has redrawn the issue contrast rapidly on other issues, too. And she has built a bigger lead on some key ones that already favored Democrats.

The key one: Polls suggest she’s much better situated to take advantage of Democrats’ advantage on abortion rights. While Biden led Trump on that issue by around 10 points in previous Times/Siena and Marquette polls, Harris now leads by 19 points in the Times/Siena poll and 23 points in the Marquette poll.

Harris has also gained somewhat in these polls on another issue Democrats have sought to emphasize, democracy, as well as health care and Medicare and Social Security.

Harris now leads by double digits on each of these issues, which Democrats hope will offset their deficits on the economy and immigration.

It’s valid to ask why Harris suddenly over-performs Biden on these issues, particularly given that she has served alongside him for 3½ years. There is little indication thus far that her policies differ markedly from his, and she has yet to detail too many policies — though that is beginning to change this week.

But policy isn’t the only factor; so too is a candidate’s perceived ability to effectuate that policy and be a strong leader. It seems possible that, amid plenty of Democratic fretting about how Biden didn’t seem to get enough credit for strong, non-inflation economic indicators, many voters were dinging Biden because of their belief that he simply wasn’t up to the task — not necessarily because of specific outcomes.

And perhaps there was an opening for them backing off these concerns. Many voters, for instance, perceive their own finances or the economy in their area as being strong, even as they viewed the national economy much more negatively. That suggests this might not be as immediate and lingering an electoral concern as it might seem.

What’s clear is that, for whatever reason, Harris isn’t bogged down on these issues due to her connection with Biden. She might not be the “change” candidate, per se, but she benefits from a perception that she’d be better.

It’s not enough to give her an advantage on those two top-line issues (that Financial Times poll notwithstanding), but it is enough to give her more of a fighting chance — for now.

One month ago, the Republican Party was convening in Milwaukee to anoint Donald Trump as its presidential nominee for the third consecutive election. The convention was energetic and brash; the attempt on Trump’s life had reinforced Republicans’ already robust enthusiasm for their candidate, and Trump skeptics had long ago been rooted out of the inner circle. Polling showed that the former president was on a glide path to election. States that hadn’t been red in decades suddenly looked like they might be in play in 2024.

Then the convention ended. President Joe Biden announced that he would no longer seek the Democratic Party’s nomination, clearing the way for Vice President Kamala Harris. Democrats, suddenly giddy about their chances and about their candidate, threw cash at the revamped candidacy. Harris surged in the polls.

But that wasn’t the only shift the race has undergone in recent months. In addition to Trump suddenly facing an entirely new opponent — to his obvious chagrin — he’s also facing a shifted political landscape. He’d intended to run against Biden and the Biden administration’s track record on crime, immigration and inflation. But none of those attacks is as potent as it was two years ago.

Crime

It goes without saying that the coronavirus pandemic upended the country in numerous ways. What was not clear at the time, though, was how sticky the effects might be. When violent crime surged in 2020 and into 2021, for example, it wasn’t clear whether this was a permanent reversion of the downward trend the country had seen since the early 1990s.

Fox News has been consistently insistent that crime is surging under Biden, making fearmongering about crime a central component of its coverage before the 2022 midterms. Since that point, though, data has repeatedly indicated that crime — and violent crime in particular — has declined over the past few years.

As we’ve noted, measuring national crime trends in real time is tricky. Data are available in some cities, but consistent national data is gathered only well after the fact. Even then, it’s often incomplete. But the data that are available and outside analyses of city-level trends suggest a noteworthy decline.

Last week, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization of law enforcement leaders, released data showing sharp drops in violent crime in a number of large American cities between the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024. Biden hailed the data, crediting the American Rescue Plan.

This is not the only such data. FBI data released in June showed a similar year-over-year decline, as did data the bureau released in December. When the agency released its data for 2022, it showed a decrease in crime that year — contrary to Fox News’s coverage.

Immigration

Mirroring his 2016 campaign for president, Trump has focused heavily on immigration in his bid to regain the presidency. He’s fond of amplifying data about the number of apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border to suggest that the country is overrun with new arrivals, particularly those who entered the country illegally.

This rhetoric is enabled by the complexity of the subject (like that those entering the country to seek asylum are often granted permission to remain and that a large percentage of those apprehended have been quickly removed from the country). But Trump’s assertions about an “open border” are also hobbled by the striking decrease in apprehensions in recent months.

In December, nearly 250,000 people were apprehended between border checkpoints on the border with Mexico. In January, though, the number was half as large. From February to March, the monthly figure dropped by 2 percent. From March to April, it was down 6 percent. Then 9 percent the next month and, in June, down 29 percent over May — the month in which the Biden administration unveiled new rules governing asylum applications. The result is that apprehensions in June were a third of those seen in December.

The figure is still high, certainly, more in line with levels of apprehensions seen during the administration of George W. Bush than that of Barack Obama. Apprehensions were low under Obama in part because the U.S. economy was still recovering from the recession; they were unusually low in 2020 because of the pandemic.

Another way to look at it: There were fewer apprehensions between border checkpoints in June 2024 than there were in June 2019 under Donald Trump.

Prices

The central argument Trump has been using for his candidacy, of course, is that the country has been wracked by inflation. And that’s true; after the initial restrictions linked to the pandemic were eased, prices surged along with demand.

Trump points to various products to emphasize those price increases. He often claims that gasoline jumped from $1.87 during his administration to somewhere north of $5 under Biden. Speaking to Elon Musk on Monday, he offered another example: Bacon now costs “4 or 5 times more than it did a few years ago.”

The reason gasoline was cheap during the Trump administration, of course, is that demand crashed as people were staying home to avoid the coronavirus. Nor are national prices north of $5; they’ve leveled off in recent months in the $3.50 range, according to the Energy Information Administration. Bacon did surge in cost in 2021, but has since stabilized (well below four times what it cost a few years ago).

It’s worth noting, by the way, that the national average price of gas in recent months is somewhat lower than it was under Obama. It was during the Obama administration that prices dropped to the levels that Trump now exaggerates.

What’s important about the gas and bacon prices, though, is that, after the initial surge, prices didn’t keep climbing higher and higher. Prices of those products jumped — and then remained at those new higher levels.

This isn’t great, and these are just two products. It is also true, as the administration argues, that average wages have increased more rapidly since 2021 and that the increase in the rate of inflation has slowed. (You can see it on the graph at right below, that little inflection point marked with the vertical dotted line.) The rate of increase in wages has in recent months consistently been larger than the rate of increase of inflation, in fact.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data on inflation showing that the annual increase last month was lower than at any point since March 2021. Again, this isn’t deflation, a decrease in prices. But it does suggest that the valid concerns about the rate at which prices were increasing have been significantly addressed.

This is an esoteric evaluation of the economy, certainly, but polling data suggests that Trump’s advantage on the economy has narrowed, in part thanks to the change at the top of the Democratic ticket.

These shifts also are not likely to change Trump’s rhetoric. He is no more interested in presenting accurate information about crime, immigration and inflation than he ever was, so he highlights things like the unmeasured-and-exaggerated concept of “migrant crime” to stoke fears about the direction of the country.

Still, the current numbers are a reflection of how the ground under Trump’s feet has shifted. He’s running against the first half of Biden’s administration, when Biden was his opponent and crime, inflation and immigration were acute problems. But now, to his chagrin, it’s 2024. The landscape is very different.

The messaging in presidential political advertisements has dramatically shifted in the weeks since President Joe Biden abandoned his bid for a second term and Vice President Kamala Harris united the Democratic Party to seize the nomination.

A Washington Post analysis of data from the political research firm AdImpact found that Democrats have shifted the primary focus of their ads from Donald Trump’s character and dire warnings about the twice-impeached former president’s threat to democracy to issues such as abortion and the economy.

Republicans also have recalibrated their messaging, heavily focusing on immigration and accusing Harris of mishandling the U.S.-Mexico border among other criticisms.

Harris is set to accept the party’s nomination next Thursday at the Democratic convention in Chicago, a month and a day since Biden dropped his bid. In the weeks since, the two parties have changed the tone and topics of their ads, seeking to capitalize on issues to energize their bases and win over swing voters in what is expected to be a close Nov. 5 election.

Biden forged his 2020 and 2024 campaigns on a message casting Trump as an existential threat to the nation. But since he dropped out and Harris took over as the nominee, the Democratic ad campaign has shifted from that serious forewarning in favor of a sunnier political vision. The move comes as Democrats, including Harris’s choice for vice president, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, adopted a more colloquial criticism, calling Trump and vice-presidential nominee JD Vance “weird.”

With Harris’s shorter-than-usual runway to the general election, the most frequently run Democratic ads since Biden dropped out have been aimed at introducing her to voters by focusing on her biography, depicting her as someone who has fought for everyday Americans.

In one such ad paid for by “Harris for President,” a male narrator calls the vice president “fearless” and recites the arc of her career — from prosecutor to California attorney general to vice president — before talking about how Trump “wants to take our country backward.”

Another ad that aired nationally during the Olympics highlights Harris’s own remarks on abortion and the economy.

“I’m running to fight for an America where the economy works for working people, where you only have to work one job to pay the bills and where hard work is rewarded,” Harris says in the ad from FF PAC. “Where reproductive rights are not just protected by the Constitution of the United States, but guaranteed in every state because that’s our America, and that’s the America I believe in.”

On the airwaves, the data show that abortion, the economy and fighting crime also have been the top issues in the Democratic ads since Biden dropped out, replacing the previous top priorities of Trump’s character and cutting health-care costs.

The Republican ads portray a far different version of Harris, suggesting that she hid that Biden was unfit for office.

“Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it,” a female narrator says in the ad, which was paid for by the MAGA Inc. super PAC. “Look what she got done. A border invasion, runaway inflation, the American Dream dead. They created this mess.”

The Post reviewed all presidential television political advertisements collected by AdImpact from Super Tuesday, March 5, through Aug. 9. AdImpact classifies up to three issues as the primary focus of each ad based on the narration and videos. The firm also measures how many times each advertisement has been aired. The Post analyzed which issues appeared most frequently before and after Biden dropped out.

The Harris campaign and officials from MAGA Inc., and Future Forward PAC had no immediate comment.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris became the Biden administration’s most vocal advocate for abortion access — an issue that the president, a practicing Catholic, had long struggled to discuss. The issue has proved to be a successful one for Democrats, and it’s expected to emerge as a motivating factor for voters in November.

There were major victories for abortion access last year in conservative-leaning states, and Democrats have seen a wave of election wins tied to their emphasis on protecting reproductive rights since Roe was overturned.

On Tuesday, Missouri and Arizona — the latter a key battleground state — both secured ballot initiatives aimed at enshrining abortion rights in their state constitutions, state officials said. The issue is also set to go before voters this year in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, New York, South Dakota and another battleground state, Nevada.

The GOP’s presidential campaign message has depicted a dark vision of Democratic rule, steeped in grievance about the direction of the country. Since Biden dropped out, Republican ads have focused less on inflation and the economy. Immigration has been emphasized in 98 percent of Republican presidential ads aired since Harris became the likely nominee. Other prevailing themes emphasized in the ads have included crime and illegal drugs.

When asked what drove the Trump campaign’s shift in messaging, national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the former president and his campaign would “use every tool at” their disposal “to ensure every American knows that Kamala Harris is responsible for the illegal immigration and inflation crises that we face.”

Republicans for years have attacked Harris as a failed “border czar,” deeming her responsible for dealing with the surge of migrants attempting to enter the country. Biden directed her as vice president to tackle the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. She was never put in charge of the border nor designated a “czar.”

Americans’ concerns about immigration have risen sharply this year, according to a poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released earlier this month. Half of Americans said the large number of immigrants and refugees entering the country is a “critical threat” to U.S. interests, the highest level since 2010. The poll found that most Americans support two proposals laid out by Trump: using U.S. troops to stop migrants from entering the country and expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall. But a larger majority of Americans oppose Trump’s proposal to put undocumented immigrants in mass-detention camps.

Immigration has not exactly been a great winning play for Trump since his 2016 run for president. Ahead of the 2018 midterm election, Trump leaned into the issue, repeatedly warning about the threat of a migrant caravan crossing into the United States. Although immigration was a top issue of concern for voters that cycle, Democrats were still able to take control of the House, largely on fears about the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Crime has also become a flash point of both campaigns. Democrats’ ads have focused on Harris’s record combating crime as a prosecutor. Republican ads assert that Harris was a progressive prosecutor who let dangerous criminals go free, and that she is responsible for the crimes committed by immigrants in the United States while she has been vice president.

Data released by the FBI in June showed drops in crime across the United States over the last year. Violent crime was down nationally in the first quarter of 2024 by more than 15 percent relative to the prior year, according to the data. And the drop in the number of murders reported by the FBI was also the largest in the country’s biggest cities. But not every law enforcement agency reports its data to the FBI on time, and the accuracy of reports provided by individual agencies varies.

Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

President Joe Biden reiterated his call Wednesday for the release of freelance journalist Austin Tice, saying that his administration has “repeatedly pressed” Syria to work with the United States to secure his return.

Biden’s comments came in a statement marking 12 years since Tice was abducted in Syria.

“We have repeatedly pressed the government of Syria to work with us so that we can, at last, bring Austin home,” Biden said in the statement. “Today, I once again call for his immediate release.”

Tice, a Marine veteran and Texas native, was abducted on Aug. 14, 2012, while reporting on the civil war in Syria. He disappeared at a checkpoint outside Damascus, and video surfaced months later showing him blindfolded and being held by a group of armed men.

U.S. officials have long insisted the Syrian government is holding Tice, which the country has denied. Biden said in 2022 his administration knows “with certainty” that Syria has had Tice in captivity.

Earlier this month, Biden helped bring home two American journalists held abroad, Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, as part of the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War. They were freed along with a third American who had been imprisoned in Russia, Marine veteran Paul Whelan.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also released a statement on the 12-year anniversary of Tice’s abduction.

“This has gone on for far too long,” Blinken said. “We call on the Syrian government to work with the United States to end Austin’s captivity and to provide an accounting for the fate of other Americans who went missing in Syria.”

Echoing Biden, Blinken said the United States has “repeatedly offered to find a way to bring him home.”

The FBI has posted a reward of up to $1 million for any “information leading directly to the safe location, recovery, and return” of Tice.

Tice worked for a number of news organizations, including CBS, The Washington Post and McClatchy. In a statement on the recent prisoner swap, The Post’s leaders called for the “safe return of American journalist Austin Tice and all wrongfully detained journalists and hostages.”

“Independent journalism is a critical function of democracy,” the statement said. “The U.S. government must make it a priority to bring them all home safely and champion the importance of press freedom worldwide.”