Consumer confidence ticked up slightly in October, with Americans providing marginally sunnier assessments and projections of current and future business conditions.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose overall by 7.5 points to 91.7 this month, up from 84.2 in September, with shoppers’ estimation of the present situation increasing 8.6 percent to 120.4. Their short-term outlook for business and labor market conditions, as well as their own incomes, bucked the three-month trend of declines, growing 6.9 points to 72.6.

“Consumer confidence advanced in October, driven primarily by improved perceptions of current and expected business conditions,” said Fergus McCormick, senior economist focused on global indicators at the Conference Board.

The Present Situation Index showed that net perceptions of business conditions—the number of consumers who would characterize the situation as “good” over “bad”—grew by 4.8 percentage points to 3.6 percent following a particularly downbeat September reading. The Expectations Index for business conditions rose 5.7 percentage points to -3.0 percent.

The outcomes could be considered a small but welcome October surprise for Republicans days ahead of the midterm elections.

According to McCormick, this month’s recovery lined up with a month-over-month easing of gas prices. But the economist cautioned against unearned optimism, saying that October’s numbers don’t necessarily represent a reversal of attitudes.

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