While Republicans/Lean Republican respondents to the U.Michigan survey don’t show a very different response to March/April economic events, they are remarkably upbeat on the future.
Figure 1: U.Michigan Overall Consumer Sentiment (bold black), Democratic/Lean Democratic (blue), Independent (gray), Republican/Lean Republican (red). April is preliminary. Source: U. Michigan.
The decrease in sentiment is about the same for Republicans and Democrats over the two months from February. This composite variable masks differennces assessment of current conditions and expectations. Focusing on the latter, we see Republicans remaining largely optimistic. Figure 2 shows the expectations subindex broken down by partisan grouping, relative to February 2026 levels.
Figure 1: Change from February 2026 levels in U.Michigan Overall Consumer Expectations (bold black), Democratic/Lean Democratic (blue), Independent (gray), Republican/Lean Republican (red). April is preliminary. Source: U. Michigan, and author’s calculations.
Republican expectations have fallen by about 2.5%, compared to 26% for Democratic, and 19% overall.
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