Fed watch: Will the cen­tral bank cut inter­est rates before the elec­tion?

The Fed­er­al Reserve will meet just two more times between now and the Novem­ber elec­tions. The big ques­tions are whether the Fed will cut inter­est rates and how it will affect the pres­i­den­tial show­down.
It has been a year since the Fed changed its inter­est rate tar­get in any way. In July 2023, the Fed raised rates from 5.25% to 5.50%. The cur­rent lev­el is pre­sum­ably the zenith of the cen­tral bank’s his­toric tight­en­ing cycle, which began in reac­tion to the worst infla­tion in gen­er­a­tions, amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Fed­er­al Reserve Chair­man Jerome Pow­ell speaks at a Sen­ate hear­ing on mon­e­tary pol­i­cy on July 9 in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. (Graeme Jen­nings / Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er)

But now, 28 months after inter­est rates began ris­ing, the Fed is eye­ing rate cuts. In one of the most con­tentious elec­tion years in mod­ern his­to­ry, rate changes will undoubt­edl …