Arizona Backlash Dissipating

The other week we showed you how visual the backlash against the state of Arizona has been over AZ 1070 – Immigration Reform. We’ve been keeping an eye on Arizona and not only has the volume of the backlash declined in recent days, but so has the level of average negative sentiment directed at Arizona. The following is the average sentiment expressed about Arizona in both Media and User Generated Content from April 1 through yesterday (May 11th). This chart shows the weekly average:

Arizona - Weekly Composite Sentiment

The rebound is visible with last week being the bottom of the trough. However, this is only part of the story. If you take a closer look using a 3 day moving average of sentiment, you can see that Arizona has actually crossed into positive territory yesterday.

Arizona Composite Sentiment - 3 Day Moving Average

It should be noted that this sentiment derived from all things Arizona – travel, schools, weather, sports teams, economy, immigration, politics – you name it. Any discussion about Arizona. As you can see prior to the passage of 1070, Arizona usually trends in the +1 to +2 range in Composite Sentiment (and the +0.2 – +0.4 range in raw sentiment). Thus, Arizona is not out of the woods yet and the 1070 issue is still effecting perception – but not as much as it was.