Public Sentiment
Approval, economic sentiment, and media sentiment by administration — 1999 to present
This report measures three different dimensions of public sentiment during each presidential administration from 1999 to the present:
- Political approval — aggregate Gallup approval averages by administration (hand-curated; polling APIs aren’t free for full history).
- Economic sentiment — University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (
UMCSENT, monthly, via FRED — public-domain; auto-refreshed daily). - Media sentiment — planned (requires a news-tone feed; see the Media page for what’s coming).
None of these measures capture presidents directly — they capture public response during a period that includes the president plus every other influence on public mood (wars, pandemics, the business cycle, global shocks, media environment). Treat these as descriptive, not causal. See Methodology for the full caveats.
Baselines
Across the administrations displayed (Clinton partial → Trump II):
- UMCSENT baseline: 82.6 (mean of monthly observations in the 1999-to-present window that are tagged to a displayed admin).
- Gallup baseline: 47.1% (mean of the five completed admins’ term-average approvals).
Numbers further right of zero in the “vs baseline” columns mean above the cross-administration average; left of zero means below.
Summary by administration
Political approval vs economic sentiment
Two different things the two measures capture: approval is about the president, UMCSENT is about the economy the public perceives. They often move together but don’t have to.
Where to go next
- Political Approval → — Gallup per-admin averages, min/max volatility, exit vs. peak comparison.
- Economic Sentiment → — UMCSENT timeline shaded by administration, world events overlay, per-admin averages vs long-run baseline.
- Media Sentiment → — planned section (C); scope + data-source options.
- Methodology → — source provenance, why “sentiment toward an administration” is imprecise, caveats.