By Dan Burns
(Reuters) – U.S. political independents, who are usually at the center of a closely watched monthly survey of overall consumer attitudes toward the economy, have moved closer to Republicans’ hardline positions this year, a potential warning sign for the Democrats hoping to hold on to the White House in the November 5 presidential election.
In another indication of the president’s difficulty Joe Biden faced with voters over the economy – consistently ranked as the top concern of the American electorate ahead of the election – the University of Michigan’s monthly consumer confidence survey fell to a six-month low in May. Assessments of the current situation were the lowest in a year and household expectations were the weakest since December.
The party breakdown unsurprisingly shows that Democrats – who have held power in the White House since January 2021 – are significantly more optimistic than Republicans, a partisan divide that has been routine since the survey began asking every month about the political preferences of respondents, starting at the beginning of the Republican elections. Donald Trump’s presidency in 2017. When Trump was in power, it was the Republicans who were persistently more optimistic.
Political independents, seen as a crucial voting bloc that could potentially decide the winner in November, have generally adhered closely to the survey’s overall score until this year.
Sentiment among independents more often than not registers as slightly less optimistic about the economy, regardless of which party is in power, but has remained significantly below the overall poll since January.
In both absolute and percentage terms, the downward deviation in May – 6.6 index points or 9.6% respectively – was the largest since the monthly figures were published. Since January, independent companies have registered an average of 5.1 points (6.7%) below the overall Consumer Sentiment Index, compared to an average downward difference of 1.6 points (2.2%) since February 2017, when monthly measurements began .
In fact, in five of the past six months, measurements from independent researchers have been more than one standard deviation below the series average, indicating that the gap is both materially outside the norm and persistent. The measurements from two of the past three months were more than two standard deviations below the average.
A Reuters/IPSOS poll released on Tuesday showed Biden’s overall approval rating falling to 36% this month, the lowest level in about two years.
The economy was chosen by 23% of respondents as the most important issue facing the country, making it the top concern of voters. Forty percent of respondents said Trump had better economic policies, compared to 30% who chose Biden, while the rest said they didn’t know or didn’t answer the question.
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Paul Simao)
