(book project with Spencer Goidel, Auburn University and Paul M. Kellstedt, Texas A&M)

Abstract: The rational electorate that political scientists once imagined and theorized about now seems like an antiquated idea in the US. In its place, we have a rationalizing electorate—made up of partisans who search out information to align with and support their deeply held identities. Many of the common narratives used in politics, the media, and political science do not fit this world. For example, if neither the Covid-19-related economic crash of 2020 nor the healthy 2024 economy could get Republican partisans from abandoning Donald Trump, we need to rethink what we mean when we say that the economy matters.

We examine the gradual erosion of two important pillars of democratic accountability in America. The first is the once-strong connection between consumer confidence and presidential approval in the U.S. As time has passed, the statistical association between the two has weakened considerably. This means that a president’s approval rating depends less on what the public thinks about the economy than has historically been the case. Second, and perhaps even more disturbing, the connection between bedrock economic reality—things grounded in objective truth, like the GDP growth rate, the unemployment rate, and inflation—and subjective consumer confidence has also faded. This means that what members of the public, and especially partisan Democrats and Republicans, tell pollsters about the economy depends less and less on objective reality, and more based on what political scientists call “partisan motivated reasoning.”