(Bloomberg) -- Annie Spurley, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student, has doubts about the economy heading into next year’s presidential election. The 21-year-old has had to work more bartending hours than she’d like with her coursework in order to pay her rent.

“I’m a little bit more on the pessimistic side,” Spurley said while walking her dog in Madison, Wisconsin, last week.

Spurley’s downbeat views of the economy are widespread among Wisconsin voters. And while she said she’d support President Joe Biden over Donald Trump next year, that sense of economic gloom is steering many others in her state to support the Republican. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found Trump is ahead in the Badger State and four additional key swing states, with a narrow edge in each that is within the margin of error.

In Wisconsin, 79% of registered voters said the US economy is on the wrong track. That was higher than the 74% who said the same across seven swing states that are likely to be decisive in next year’s presidential contest.

The dim outlook was held by Wisconsin voters in key demographic groups, including women, blue-collar workers, rural residents, and those ages 18 to 34. 

The poll, conducted Oct. 5 through Oct. 10, found 48% of Wisconsin voters trust Trump more to handle the economy, compared to 36% who trust Biden more. More Wisconsin voters than not said the economy was better under the Trump administration and that the current president’s “Bidenomics” policies are bad for the economy.

Read More: Trump Leads Biden in Key States as Voters Fret About the Economy

The results show challenging terrain for Biden’s campaign in a state that has recently been won by exceedingly narrow margins. Trump carried Wisconsin by 22,748 votes in 2016, helping to seal his electoral college victory over Hillary Clinton, who didn’t visit the state during her campaign and was surprised by her loss there. Biden flipped the state in 2020, carrying it by 20,682 votes.

Trump led Biden in Wisconsin 46% to 44% and was ahead 43% to 38% when third-party options are included, the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found. Both results are within the 4 percentage-point margin of error.  

Overall, Trump leads Biden 47% to 43% in a head-to-head match-up among voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Voters in those key election battleground are feeling the pain of rising prices for household essentials, the poll showed. 

Employment levels in Wisconsin are roughly back to where they were in the Trump years that preceded the pandemic. But Wisconsin ranked 43rd among US states in jobs growth in the past 12 months, and employment in manufacturing, a key sector, fell by 0.6% during that period.

The jobless rate in September, at 3.1%, is below the national level and matches the December 2019 figure, although it is up from 2.4% in May.

“I’d like to think the economy’s going to rebound, but I’m very worried with what’s going on in Israel and Gaza, whether that’s going to cause us to take a step back,” said Bill Herman, 73, a retired human-resources executive from Madison. Herman considers himself an independent who wishes Biden weren’t running but would support him in a rematch with Trump. Herman gives Biden a B- grade on the economy.

Read More: Prices Pinch Swing Voters in Blow to Biden’s Reelection Bid

Wages and salaries are expected to increase 5% this year in the state compared to 5.3% in the US but down from 8% last year, according to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. The year-over-year inflation rate in the East North Central region that includes Wisconsin has moderated from a high of 9.8% in June 2022 to 2.9% in September, compared with 3.7% nationally.

“I feel like we’re at a tipping point,” Whitney Snow of Madison, a 42 year-old consultant, said of the economy, noting that she has seen an ebb and flow in her work with clients and is uncertain whether the economy will get better or worse. Snow isn’t happy with her choices in a match-up of Biden and Trump, the clear leader for the GOP nomination. 

The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found that even Wisconsin voters who are members of a union household think “Bidenomics” is bad for the economy – a discouraging signal for the president from a group that exit polls show he carried in 2020.

That underscores the challenge facing Kent Miller, president and business manager of Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council near Madison, whose group supports Biden and hosted him for a visit in February.

Miller said Biden’s infrastructure law and other legislation is making a difference and “we’re trying to connect those dots with our members and say, ‘There’s actual on-the-ground progress that you can see firsthand versus the past president.’”

Polling conducted more than a year ahead of an election can often differ widely from the results at the ballot box, said Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, while noting his party will aim to make the election a choice between Biden’s vision that supports the middle class and Republicans’ “trickle-down” approach.

Kurt Bauer, chief executive officer of the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce chamber, said his survey of likely Wisconsin voters in April mirrored the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult results on the economy.

Bauer, whose group endorsed Trump in 2020, said his members typically say their own financial situation is good even if they have negative views of the economy overall. He said one of his board members recently captured a nagging uncertainty about pocketbook issues.

“He said, ‘We’re not in a recession — but we’re in something,”’ Bauer said.

--With assistance from Gregory Korte.

(adds detail about 2016 presidential campaign in Wisconsin)

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