Kandahar

Three variables seem to have a very strong correlation to whether or not the incumbent party wins the presidential election: The approval rating of the incumbent president, the economic growth rate during the election year, and the number of terms the incumbent party has held the White House.

Now this is a simplistic analysis, but I've collected this data for every election in the post-War period. Let's have a looksie.

For simplicity's sake, I've divided each statistic into "good news" or "bad news" for the incumbent party. If the incumbent president's approval rating is above 50%, that's good. If it's below 50%, that's bad. If the economic growth rate during the election year is above 3%, that's good. If it's below 3%, that's bad. If the number of terms the incumbent party has held the White House is 1, that's good. If it's any number other than 1, that's bad.

It turns out that those three statistics, collectively, predict the winner of the popular vote for every single election since 1948. If all three of them are "good news," the incumbent party wins the popular vote by a 15.0% margin. If two of the three are "good news," the incumbent party wins the popular vote by a 7.1% margin. If only one of the three is "good news," the incumbent party loses the popular vote by a -4.9% margin.

So what do the current statistics indicate? Zero of the three are "good news" for the incumbent party...the first time that's happened since 1948. But it seems to me that that would indicate a landslide for Obama.


1948 - Truman's approval rating is good, economy is good, number of terms is bad. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 4.5%

1952 - Truman's approval rating is bad, economy is good, number of terms is bad. RESULT: Incumbent party LOSES popular vote by -10.9%

1956 - Eisenhower's appoval rating is good, economy is bad, number of terms is good. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 15.4%

1960 - Eisenhower's approval rating is good, economy is bad, number of terms is bad. RESULT: Incumbent party LOSES popular vote by -0.2%

1964 - Johnson's approval rating is good, economy is good, number of terms is good. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 22.6%

1968 - Johnson's approval rating is bad, economy is good, number of terms is bad. RESULT: Incumbent party LOSES popular vote by -0.7%

1972 - Nixon's approval rating is good, economy is good, number of terms is good. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 23.2%

1976 - Ford's approval rating is bad, economy is good, number of terms is bad. RESULT: Incumbent party LOSES popular vote by -2.1%

1980 - Carter's approval rating is bad, economy is bad, number of terms is good. RESULT: Incumbent party LOSES popular vote by -9.7%

1984 - Reagan's approval rating is good, economy is good, number of terms is good. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 18.2%

1988 - Reagan's approval rating is good, economy is good, number of terms is bad. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 7.8%

1992 - Bush's approval rating is bad, economy is good, number of terms is bad. RESULT: Incumbent party LOSES popular vote by -5.6%

1996 - Clinton's approval rating is good, economy is good, number of terms is good. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 8.5%

2000 - Clinton's approval rating is good, economy is good, number of terms is bad. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 0.5%

2004 - Bush's approval rating is good, economy is good, number of terms is good. RESULT: Incumbent party WINS popular vote by 2.4%

2008 - Bush's approval rating is bad, economy is bad, number of terms is bad. RESULT: ???

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