The point that Prof DeLong misses is that R voters were almost certainly comparing things today in 2024 with things in 2019 or 2020.

They feel that things have been more violent over the past 4 years thanks to BLM, Queers for Palestine, Antifa etc. riots. As well as the constant awareness of illegals who are definitely not all nice law abiding sorts. They certainly, and with good reason because they have been adjusted all sorts of ways, disbelieve official statistics.

The rate of inflation may have slowed and possibly the stock market is at apeak. But neither of those matter. People feel poorer because wages have not kept up with cost of living increases. When people have more actual disposable income again they’ll feel like inflation has been conquered, until then it doesn’t seem like it has. Perhaps their pension fund or 401K is doing great, but you can’t buy groceries with that money.

And again, it may be true that in recent months the border has become less porous, but that is irrelevent because there are millions of prior illegals who made it across who are competing for housing/jobs, getting aid from states and the federal government and so on. It doesn’t matter that the rate in 2024 is less than 2022. Both are higher than 2019 AND no one has kicked the ones who came in the last four years back out

So yes it may be that R voters have the “wrong” answers on these questions, but that’s almost certainly because those are the “wrong” questions and they misinterpreted the time periods in them (either deliberately or not)