Politics Dictates U.S. Consumer Sentiment

As families across the United States sit down for Thanksgiving dinner today, many will be hoping to avoid talking about politics. Nothing quite divides the nation nowadays like political partisanship does, and as figures from the University of Michigan show, its influence reaches deeper than you'd perhaps think.

As illustrated by this infographic, a sharp, meaningful shift in consumer sentiment occurred around the time of Trump's election as President in 2016/2017. Democrats went from an index score of 102.1 in the month before the election, to 77.5 after the 45th President had taken office. While the 2020/21 shift in power to the blue side of the aisle coincided with the turbulence of the Covid-19 pandemic, a clear shift upwards for Demorats can be observed in 2020 and 2021 - peaking just after Biden entered the White House.

Republican consumers' sentiment on the other hand carried on nosediving throughout the pandemic and election year. A trend that has only continued since Biden was sworn in. The latest index figures for November have Democrats at 88.4, higher than at any point during the Trump administration, while the Republican figure is a mere 37.8.