In his first term of office Donald Trump achieved the lowest average job approval ratings (41%) among Americans since the end of the second world war. In his second term he has fallen well below that with an approval rating of only 35% in a recent Economist/YouGov poll.
Much of this can be explained by voter perceptions of the state of the US economy. The chart below shows the relationship between the percentage of Americans who approve of the president’s handling of his job and consumer confidence. It covers almost 50 years of monthly data with the consumer confidence data coming from surveys conducted at the University of Michigan.
Presidential approval and consumer confidence in the US, 1978 to 2026
The two series track each other closely and so demonstrate a moderately strong relationship with a correlation of 0.44 (If they were unrelated the correlation would be 0 and if they were exactly the same it would be 1). In both cases higher scores denote greater approval and increasing consumer confidence. This confirms the well-known fact that the state of the economy is a big driver of presidential approval.
If we look closely at the consumer confidence index, the average score over the entire period was 84. In the late 1970s Jimmy Carter had low and falling approval ratings and consumer confidence scores. This goes a long way to explaining why he was a one-term president who lost to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.
A decade later, when Republican George HW Bush was president between 1989 and 1993, consumer confidence plummeted as an official recession in the US economy was declared in July 1990, leading to declining growth and rising unemployment. The Federal Reserve, which is responsible for US monetary policy, exacerbated a weak financial situation by raising interest rates in order to combat inflation. The result was that Bush senior became another one-term president and lost the 1992 election to his Democrat rival, Bill Clinton (whose campaign motto was famously: “It’s the economy, stupid.”).
However, the largest fall in consumer confidence over this period occurred after the financial crash of 2007-2008, which in turn produced a serious recession and rapidly declining consumer confidence. On this occasion George W Bush was in his second term as US president and his collapsing approval ratings paved the way for the victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential contest.
Finally, when Donald Trump won the presidential election in November 2016, consumer confidence was relatively high. In January 2017 at the time of his inauguration the consumer confidence index stood at 99. Four years later in January 2021 when Joe Biden was inaugurated as president the index was at 79, a dramatic decline in historical terms.
The midterm elections for the House and the Senate take place in November this year and currently things do not look good for the Republicans. Pollsters have been asking what is called a “generic” question in their surveys about who respondents would vote for if the midterm elections took place today. They are virtually unanimous in their agreement that the Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives. In addition, it is possible, though less likely, that the Democrats will win control of the Senate.
A thought experiment
An interesting thought experiment is to suppose that we were looking at a presidential election in November rather than the midterms. What light does the current consumer confidence data throw on such a hypothetical election?
The second chart shows the relationship between voting for the incumbent’s party in the 19 presidential elections since 1978 and consumer confidence in the month of these elections.
Incumbent vote shares and consumer confidence in presidential elections since 1978
Once again, the relationship is moderately strong between the two series with a correlation of 0.43. Voters reward or punish the incumbent president or his party’s candidate depending on how they feel about the economy. As we observed in the first chart, the consumer confidence score was at its lowest at 55 in the 2008 election which Obama won. But the score on the index in June 2026 was 49, so – if consumer confidence continues to fall – then in a hypothetical presidential election in November Trump would lose very badly.
This is a thought experiment rather than a prediction of what is likely to happen in the presidential election of 2028. But when the war in the Middle East launched by the US and Israel threatens to produce a global recession it seems unlikely that consumer confidence in the US will improve any time soon.
Trump will not be on the ballot in 2028. But the Republican candidate in that election is likely to take a historical beating if the US and world economies do not improve in the meantime.
Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC.