A preliminary version of Public Policy Mood is now available at: https://stimson.web.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/9919/2021/06/Mood5220.xlsx. The reason this dataset is preliminary is that the important General Social Survey cross section study for 2020 will not be available until late summer (2021) due to Covid-related delays. A final, official, version of Mood will be estimated when those data are available.



The dataset is an Excel sheet containing annual, biennial, and quarterly estimates as well as a graph comparing the 2018 and 2020 annual estimates.



What is immediately noticeable in this preliminary estimate is that Mood reaches its all-time liberal high point for 2020. That comes as something of a surprise to me because I had guessed -- from Republican down ballot success in the 2020 elections — that liberal mood would show a slight decline from its previous high in 2018.



Much interpretation of the 2020 presidential outcome is Trump-centric, that voters were primarily moved by either strong support for or strong opposition to a uniquely polarizing figure in American politics. And deservedly so. These data suggest a more conventional partial explanation, that candidate Biden was closer to the preferences of American voters than was candidate Trump.







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