Partisan Economic Biases In A Time Of COVID

Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution) ^ | April 13, 2020 | David Brady, John Ferejohn, Brett Parker

[CheshireTheCat]

...Major news outlets are blaring news of the economy’s demise non-stop, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has openly worried that the coming downturn could be worse that the 2008 financial crisis. However, to scholars of American politics, this fits with a consistent pattern of polarized partisan perceptions. Over the last 20 years or so (and particularly over the past 10), partisans’ economic perceptions have consistently tracked partisan control of the White House. As Figure 1 demonstrates, Democrats have generally felt positively about the economy only when a co-partisan controls the White House—the opposite is true of Republicans...Other research has suggested that these partisan differences in factual perceptions are pervasive and represent sincere differences in beliefs. For example, in a forthcoming paper, political scientists Erik Peterson and Shanto Iyengar assess the degree to which partisans disagreed about the veracity of the following statements (among others)...Across these questions, the average difference between Democrats and Republicans was 30 percentage points. Moreover, this gap largely (60-70%) persisted when respondents were offered monetary incentives to answer the questions correctly...

[CheshireTheCat]

It will be interesting to see what connections demonrats make between the shutdowns and the economy. Actually, it's probably more interesting and important what connections democratic-leaning independents make as opposed to the hard-core demonrats.

[sauropod]

As Figure 1 demonstrates, Democrats have generally felt positively about the economy only when a co-partisan controls the White House—the opposite is true of Republicans

The authors assume the reader can't read, nor do simple arithmetic.

I remember full well what the economy was like under the reign of Ears.

[youngidiot]

The democrats are almost always wrong.
They think the obama economy was good and the Trump economy is bad. A cursory look at the data shows that the opposite is true.