“In the overall trends, Trump’s favorable rating is back to baseline,” Lydia Saad, the director of US social research at Gallup, told Vox. “Among young people, it’s back to where it was before January 6. … It also does not look like he has recovered among white adults, whereas he has improved above baseline among all people of color.”

These data points all suggest that something has changed among the electorate and the country in general, and also that something more pronounced might be happening with younger, nonwhite, and working-class Americans. What could it be? Here are three theories to explain and understand what might be happening.

As the pandemic subsided, the economy became the major storyline of the Biden years. It’s consistently the top issue for all voters, but especially for Black, Latino, and working-class Americans. Trump made the booming pre-pandemic economy central to his reelection pitch four years ago, and he is using it as the central argument against Biden.

Inflation, higher interest rates, and mixed views about the post-Covid recovery continue to be Biden and Democrats’ biggest liabilities. In an inverted way, it also may be one of Trump’s biggest assets in rebuilding his popularity.

In the latest New York Times/Siena poll, for example, Black voters feel as bad about the economy as their white counterparts; Latino voters feel even worse. Similarly, younger voters, under the age of 30, feel worse about the economy than older cohorts. Seventy-three percent of white voters would rate the economy as fair or poor, while 74 percent of Black voters and 84 percent of Latinos would say so. Among young adults, 86 percent would say so, 8 points higher than those 30 to 44 years old.

Among these cohorts of Americans, young people and Latino voters also feel strongly that the economy is worse now than it was right before the pandemic. Seventy-one percent of adults under 30 would say so, higher than the 65 percent of 30- to 44-year-olds, 62 percent of 45- to 64-year-olds, and 63 percent of the oldest voters. Seventy-one percent of Latino voters would say so, compared to 56 percent of Black voters and 66 percent of white voters.

There’s plenty of evidence for this discontent. As my colleague Nicole Narea has explained, Americans think the economy is worse under Biden’s presidency than under Trump’s — despite there being plenty to be optimistic about, regardless of individual perceptions. Economic confidence is lower, concerns about the economy are higher, and Americans are racking up credit card debt, even as they also say they are worried about interest rates on debt.

At the same time, many Americans remember the Trump economy in better terms than they view the current economy. A March CBS News/YouGov poll found that 65 percent of registered voters would rate Trump’s economy as “good” while only 38 percent would say the same for Biden’s economy. And in the latest Times/Siena poll, a similar dynamic emerges. Americans across race, age, and gender feel that Trump’s policies, usually talking about his economic policies, were better for them than Biden’s currently are.

Many of the pandemic’s economic effects in both presidential terms were out of each leader’s control, but that doesn’t change many people’s belief that Biden bears more blame than Trump for the state of the economy.

Elections have consequences, and one of them tends to be that the campaign season divides the country nearly in half. Each side views the other negatively, and the presidential winner is left with the task of uniting the nation, usually with help from the outgoing executive.

Famously, Trump did the opposite in 2020. He was already suffering from low ratings throughout his presidency, but the combined effect of the coronavirus pandemic, the summer of protests and unrest, and his attempts to overturn the results of the election all translated into a steep slide in his approval and his favorability ratings by the time he left office.

Somehow, the subgroups who viewed him most negatively found more room to disapprove. From August 2020 to January 2021, Trump’s approval among Hispanic adults sank 11 points; his approval among Black adults fell from 9 percent to 4 percent; and young people’s support slipped from 25 percent to a low of 23 percent.

Seeing just how poorly Trump was being viewed three years ago, it’s possible that the improvement in Trump’s favorability now can be attributed in part to the fading memories of January 6 and the tumultuous year that was 2020. With time, and with Republicans rallying around Trump in the wake of his indictments, Trump’s image could only rise from the low point of January 2021.

A third theory holds that Trump’s improved standing is a product of him receiving less attention than he used to get. Trump is campaigning differently, getting different press coverage, and receiving less attention from the American public.