You seem to be taking it for granted that people were weighing a tradeoff and deciding which they like better. I don't think that's what happened. What happened is people heard a lot about how inflation is bad and the economy is bad, and as a result believed the economy was bad. This impacted votes.
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Fox not so coincidentally aired a bunch of stories & commentaries about an "inevitable" recession shortly prior to that.
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6359952559112
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/59percent-of-americans-think-the-us-is-in-a-recession-report-finds.html