Public Policy Mood has been updated through 2018. Downloads in Excel format are available from http://stimson.web.unc.edu/files/2019/06/Mood5218.xlsx. The download includes annual and biennial estimates, loadings and annual standard errors for the annual estimate, and graphics. 

 

The Policy Mood Custom Tool and Trends Tool series on the CAP website will be available soon.

The annual estimate for 2018 is the most liberal ever recorded in the 68 year history of Mood, just slightly higher than the previous high point of 1961. It represents  the expected leftward movement in thermostatic reaction to the Presidency of Donald Trump. The biennial estimate shows the same leftward movement, but the 2018 level is not as left as the early 1960s estimates. It should not be taken, however, as only a personal reaction to Trump because its defining items are the issues of American politics of earlier generations, the New Deal and Great Society agenda. And the estimates do not include Trump’s signature issues of immigration restriction and trade protectionism.