The importance of the economy in US presidential elections is well established.Voters reward or punish incumbent party candidates based on the state of theeconomy. The electorate focuses particularly on economic change, not the level ofthe economy per se, and pays more attention to late-arriving change than earlierchange. On these points there is a good amount of scholarly agreement (see e.g.,Erikson and Wlezien 1996; Hibbs 1987). There is less agreement, however, on whatspecific indicators matter to voters. Some scholars rely on income growth, others onGDP growth, and yet others on subjective perceptions (see Abramowitz 2008; Campbell2008; Holbrook 1996b; also see Campbell and Garand 2000). In our work, we have usedthe index of leading economic indicators, a composite of ten variables, includingthe University of Michigan's index of consumer expectations, stock prices, and eightother objective indicators.