If you happen to watch the Democratic debates tonight and tomorrow, think about this: consumer confidence these days is approaching record high levels, and the impetus to the current surge in confidence can be traced to Trump’s election in late 2016. Challengers to Trump are going to have a tough time convincing voters that change is needed.
The charts that follow show three of the most widely-followed indices that track consumer confidence. All data is as of July 2019. Chart #1 is the Conference Board’s index of Consumer Confidence. Chart #2 comes from the University of Michigan. Chart #3 comes from Bloomberg.
