As announced in October 2023, the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and the Financial Times are jointly conducting a monthly survey to determine how American voters perceive financial and economic issues leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The survey runs 12 months before the election.
The Financial Times and Michigan Ross poll continues to show that supporters of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are “living in alternate realities,” according to Jerry Davis, who serves as the survey’s faculty advisor.
Davis, professor of management and organizations, analyzed the results of Survey in February and offers the following insights:
“Commentators in the media continue to puzzle over ‘vibecession’ – the strange realization that people express pessimism about the economy even though in many respects – unemployment, inflation, wages, the stock market – the economy is doing exceptionally well,” Nate Silver searched for me wants to decipher this phenomenon in a recent New York Times editorial, and countless others have commented on it.
“What is striking about this commentary is that ‘public opinion’ is treated as a singular organism. So when you compare averages of consumer sentiment and economic statistics over a long period of time, you get the impression that public opinion has suddenly become detached from reality. But ‘public opinion’ it is.” like the weather in Michigan: The average day is a nice 65 degrees, but the days in January and July vary greatly.
“This month’s results continue to show that Biden voters and Trump voters live in alternative realities. When asked which factors were most responsible for price increases over the past six months, the vast majority of Biden voters listed “big companies exploiting inflation” as their top factor in their election, while Trump voters listed “Democratic politics first.” called.
“About a third of Biden voters believe the U.S. is spending too much on aid to Ukraine, while 62% of Trump voters think so. About two-thirds of Trump voters believe inflation moved in the wrong direction last year, compared with 36%. the Biden voter.
“Thus, rather than examining population averages, commentators would do well to examine the averages of the various tribes of America.”
The FT Michigan Ross poll is conducted by Democratic pollster Global Strategy Group and Republican pollster North Star Opinion Research. It surveys an online sample of 1,000 registered voters from various socioeconomic groups across the country and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.