For the record, in my opinion the UMich data is a scrupulous attempt to assemble survey information with the highest standards of integrity. Political attacks directed at the Michigan Survey that originate from miscreant politicians who attempt to serve their own mischievous purposes are simply false. The politicians are the sources of “fake news,” not the University of Michigan Survey.
Here’s a comment I received from longtime friends Kim and Paul, who are a team seasoned and skilled in economics and who do impeccable research. I only wish we were now closer in proximity so that we could have our “breaking of bread” and private discussions of the world’s craziness. I’d like to thank them for sending the note and for permission to share.
Paul wrote:
I’m writing because the information you included from TLR Analytics in this last letter did not appear to me to address the observation made by a reader that began your report. I found a more direct response from the Director of the U. of Michigan Survey, at https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/files/partisaneconomy202504.pdf. What follows can be found on page 4 of her report.
Paul goes on to quote the report, which features a most helpful chart:
(4) The Surveys of Consumers continue to reach a nationally representative sample of Americans across the political spectrum
Monitoring trends for over 75 years
The chart above displays proportions of respondents reporting various political affiliations. There is substantial monthly variation in political affiliation in survey participants, as is the case for all socio-demographic characteristics. However, overall proportions of reported party affiliation are relatively stable over the years, which indicates that time trends in consumer sentiment or economic views are not an artifact of shifts in nonresponse on this dimension. Proportions of the three political groups in 2025 are generally within the historical ranges seen since 2017.
Moreover, unlike demographic characteristics like birth cohort that are fixed over time, political affiliation is a malleable characteristic of the national population and even individuals. Our rotating panel design—with re-interviews six and twelve months following the initial interview—allows us to see how a consumer’s self-reported political affiliation changes over time. Re-interviews in 2025 reveal that about 20% of consumers are changing their self-reported political affiliation between interviews, consistent with findings from other major national surveys. Political affiliation is not elicited until the very end of the interview, so respondents are not primed to think specifically about politics or partisanship prior to questions about economic sentiment or expectations. Rather, responses to political identification questions may reflect a sense of alignment with a party’s approach to economic issues, which itself changes over time as well. Thus, we should not expect “true” political shares in the underlying population to be fixed over time.
Overall partisan differences in economic perceptions and expectations may be large, but monthly trends in sentiment across time are unlikely to be distorted by differential survey completion by political affiliation, or to be merely an artifact of partisan differences in views. Instead, national trends capture meaningful changes in overall consumer views of the economy.
Appendix: Question Text
Categorization of survey respondents into political affiliation groups is based on the following question: “Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, or what?”
Yesterday, Philippa Dunne published another perfectly timed look at the UMich survey. TLR has, once again, graciously given us permission to share from TLRWire:
We sent a query to the information desk at the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey concerning Ernie Tedeschi’s recent X post in which he re-weighted responses by Democrats and Republicans to a consistent 40%, and Independents to a consistent 20%. That raised the level of the survey by nine points. Looking at his trends shows that in 2017 and 2018 there was also some light between the official and re-weighted surveys, but since they have been running together. Tedeschi noted the re-weighted survey remained at “low levels.”
Director Joanne Hsu responded that although Tedeschi’s post did lift the level, it did not change the trajectory, and concurred with his own statement that the re-weighted number, like the official number, would still be “very unfavorable.”
She underscored the concurrence between the index derived from Independent and responders overall highlighted in last week’s initial November print, which we wrote up at the time, noting that, “Independents themselves hold unfavorable views of the economy at this time.”
Then she added something we want to throw into the hopper. She referenced their April report, which is the last one the University has released on political disparity, noting that “political preference is a malleable characteristic,” with a “substantial share of individuals reporting different political parties when re-interviewed 6 months later…as was also seen in recent election results, which showed widespread leftward shifts even in swing and consistently red areas.” The report shows that in 2025 about 20% of respondents are changing their political alignments when reinterviewed.
That’s why the University doesn’t adjust responses by political party, but they do make the micro-data available so interested parties can make such adjustments as needed for their own work. She signed off with, “It is clear that neither recent trends nor current unfavorable readings are being driven solely by Democrats.”
In this time of animosity, it may be a surprise to many that people are changing their affiliations at six- and twelve-month intervals!
One subscriber questioned if our posts on this topic are political. They are not. When political divergence in assessments of the economy, especially the outlook, ballooned in February 2017, we believed that was important information for people investing in the markets. With so much missing data, that’s even more true today. We will continue to provide detail on the shifting views of the two parties, and the Independents, as we have now for years, during both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Philippa Dunne & Doug Henwood
When Philippa granted our permission request, she suggested that we include this discussion from a TLRWire post last week:
The featured graph in the initial November consumer confidence survey showed trends in Independent and overall sentiment in almost humorous alignment, although Independents’ assessments are running a bit further below aggregate opinion in recent months.
As you can see on the graph below, the splits between confidence among Republicans and Independents, purple line, and Republicans and Democrats, red line, have moved together over the course of 2025, widening by 28 and 37 points, while the split between Independents and Democrats, just three points in January, has widened by only 9 points.
“Preliminary Results for November 2025” along with much historical data are available at Surveys of Consumers from the University of Michigan: https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu.
