Point at the top #1 - Signs of life from Democrats?: In last night’s (April 1) closely watched Wisconsin state supreme court race, the liberal leaning Susan Crawford easily dispatched the conservative leaning Brad Schimel.
In a demonstration of voter enthusiasm, nearly 2.4mn Wisconsinites voted, a 33% increase from the state’s 2023 supreme court election (where the liberal leaning candidate also won by 10 points). As a reminder, Trump won Wisconsin in 2024 by less than 1%.
In the two Florida special elections for the House, the Republicans won each by around 15 points. While these results came in as expected, Trump won both districts by 30 points in November.
Point at the top #2 - Government data: The day of reckoning has finally arrived. How ‘Liberation Day’ impacts global trade, markets and the lives of 8.1bn people currently living on Earth is anyone’s guess.
Aside from this uncertainty around tariffs and trade barriers, there is another issue economists are growing increasingly worried about. The government recently disbanded the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee. Why does this matter? Because this group of unpaid economists provided expertise that helped various governmental organizations produce official national statistics like census data and GDP. Philip Rocco, a political science professor at Marquette detailed why these statistics matter,
Official statistics are the backbone of American democracy and a strong economy. Census counts affect not only how political representation is allocated in Congress, the Electoral College and state legislatures, but they also determine how trillions in federal aid flow to communities across the country. GDP calculations affect decisions made by investors, businesses and policymakers.
And as the economist Claudia Sahm noted in Bloomberg, the decision to eliminate FESAC isn’t about cost.
Disbanding FESAC does not advance the administration’s goal of greater efficiency in the government. In 2024, the committee's cost was expected to be a modest $120,000, covering travel expenses and minimal staff support….the benefits to the millions of data users from regular reviews by external experts far exceed that negligible cost.
Putting a low-cost, high-value committee on the chopping block does not bode well for other investments in the official statistics. Reductions in staff and budget would likely degrade the quality of the official statistics.
Over 90% of economists in an FT-Chicago Booth survey said they were now at least “a little” concerned about a decline in US economic data.
Summary
Green circle = indicator has moved in a positive direction
Red circle = indicator has moved in a negative direction
MoM change = month-over-month change
Financial markets
Post-Election Day performance
The below chart tracks financial indicator performance in 2025. Values at December 31, 2024 have been rebased to 100 for comparison-sake.
Source: Author’s calculation
S&P 500
The first quarter of 2025 was not kind to US markets. In fact, it was the worst quarter since 2022 when markets were suffering through the inflation boom.
2025 Year-to-date return: -4.59%
Post-election return: -2.96%
Source: Marketwatch
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While it was not a good first quarter for US markets, others thrived.
Bitcoin
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