Virginians are feeling better about the economy, which could boost Republicans in the upcoming elections, but that’s all relative, because they’re still feeling pretty bad overall, which could boost Democrats.
The political analysis is mine but the economic data comes from the quarterly Roanoke College poll on consumer sentiment that was released Thursday.
How consumers are feeling is important because they — we — account for about 70% of the U.S. economy. If we’re feeling good, we spend more money. If we’re not, we don’t, so in many ways consumer sentiment is a better economic forecast than anything Wall Street might produce. Of course, how people feel is not the same as hard data, even though people’s feelings may turn into hard data depending on their spending or lack thereof. We have lots of examples throughout history of candidates who lost even…
