Here's how the sentiment index for Michigan's three partisan groups compares to the San Francisco Fed's News Sentiment Index.
figure 1: CShapiro, Sudhoff, and Wilson (2020) Daily News Sentiment Index (black, left scale), consumer confidence among Michigan College Democrats (blue), independents (green) and Republicans (red). Source: U.Me, SF Fedand the author's calculations.
Here is the same graph, but using the (inverse) misery index (the simple sum of annual CPI inflation and unemployment).
figure 2: Inverted misery index (black, left scale), consumer confidence among Michigan College Democrats (blue), independents (green), and Republicans (red). The January Pain Index uses the Cleveland Federal Reserve's instant CPI forecast as of February 2, 2024. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, University of Michigan, and author's calculations.
While sentiment among Democrats and independents rose in response to news sentiment or reversal pain, Republican sentiment was flat.
Note that each index is subject to sampling error, so I don't know if the movement differences (let alone levels) are statistically significant. What I do know is that the adj.R2 for the regression of Democratic sentiment on news sentiment between 2021 and January 2024 is about twice as large as that of the Republican one, and the coefficient is about 50% larger.
For more information about indices, see here.
