"It's the economy stupid". That was James Carville's
quote regarding the 1992 presidential campaign, but it applies to every election. It was clearly a key factor in the 2010 "wave", when the Republicans recaptured control of the House of Representatives, and the economy will almost certainly be critical in 2014 and 2016 as well.
So how do we measure "the economy"? One commonly used measure of the public's perception of the economy is the Conference Board's consumer confidence index. The consumer confidence index for June came in at 85.2--the highest level since January 2008.
The chart above shows the long term trend in the consumer confidence index going back to 1987. In both 1992 and 2010, the percentage of consumers who considered economic conditions to be "bad" was over 30% higher than the percentage of consumers who considered economic conditions to be "good". And in both cases voters turned against the party that controlled the White House. But this month, the percentage of consumers who view economic conditions as "good" was greater than the percentage of consumers who view economic conditions as "bad" for the first time since 2008. More importantly, the clear trend in consumer confidence has been very positive since 2009.
If this trend of improving consumer optimism continues through the end of this year and then into 2015 and 2016, election prospects for the party in the White House should improve as well. In fact, this trend in consumer confidence could be among the most important data to track in evaluating Democratic prospects for the 2014 and 2016 elections.
(Sorry if this has already been posted. I am always happy to see economic data diaried on DailyKos. Also, this is my first diary.)
9:57 AM PT: I should point out that the graph in this diary is not actually a graph of the consumer confidence index. Rather, it is the percentage of consumers that view current conditions as good and bad. The good/bad data is compiled as part of the same survey that used to calculate the consumer confidence index.