The Candidates
When I was just starting out as a graduate student I became familiar with Ray Fair and his Fair Model of the US Macroeconomy (elegant but complex model). Professor Fair made another model that’s relevant for elections.
He made an econometric model that predicts the incumbent party’s share of the two party vote based on a few factors (here’s his 2002 update to the paper where he generated his model).
The factors he includes are incumbency, incumbent party’s duration in office, war, GDP growth, inflation and ‘goodnews’. Goodnews is a variable that captures the strength of the economy during the incumbent party’s term.
Since he made his last update none of the variables have changed much except real GDP forecasts.
Plugging the Bureau of Economic Advisers forecasts for GDP growth into the equation suggests Republicans will get only 47.40% of the two party vote in 2008. That’s a worse defeat than Kerry suffered in 2004.
His model for the House predicts a scary 43.7% vote share.
Professor Fair’s model has been applied to all modern Presidential elections and has a strong record.
Professor Fair’s forecast isn’t a prophecy but it is a warning of what will happen if McCain allows the economy to drag him down. I don’t believe McCain has any chance to be elected unless he repudiates and runs against Bush’s unpopular economic policies. Hillary has provided McCain an opportunity to focus his economic message right at moderates and independents suspicious of Barack Obama. McCain’s movement on health care reform suggests he might take that opportunity.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:51 am
Do we know anything about the accuracy of Quinnipac polling? They have McCain getting reamed by Clinton in Florida and Ohio and by both candidates in Pennsylvania.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:56 am
DUDES! Dont look now, but hillary is leading in 3 of the newest 3 national polls! holy moly!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/democratic_presidential_nomination-191.html
May 1st, 2008 at 11:59 am
“Professor Fair’s model has been applied to all modern Presidential elections and has a strong record.”
It has a great backwards-looking record. As a predictive model, it is pretty mediocre. I was at Yale in 1992, and remember being comforted that it predicted a big win for Bush. If I recall correctly, it predicted a 58% Bush win in 2004.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I, for one, ain’t pulling for Hillary. Now that she’s been down, I think if she comes back and wins the nomination she’ll be much tougher to beat in the general.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Obama with a net of 5 super delegates today. Since PA, that makes it a net 17-6 in super delegates by my count, and that doesn’t even count those like Donna Brazile, Jimmy Carter and a few others who are obviously for Obama but just haven’t officially declared yet.
Clinton will need something in the neighbothood of 90% of the remaining superdelegates. That won’t happen. Obama will probably net at least another 5-10 supers between now and Tuesday.
Hillary will stay in to ensure Obama is weak and loses in November, though. She’ll want to embarrass him in WV and KY to cement the race issue in people’s minds and cement him as the black candidate, drive white resentment. She’ll stay in through Puerto Rico to win the popular vote and give her an angle to stay in through the Convention. She’ll lose on the 1st ballot I predict but will have succeeded in damaging Obama and the Party enough so that she can run in 2012, which is all her and Bill care about at this point.
Fortunately for Republicans, the Fair model doesn’t take racism into account which should be worth at least a few points in McCain’s favor. Also, the white woman factor which could give McCain another few points.
That said, if the economy doesn’t start to improve, and Iraq continues to get worse as it has been recently, McCain is in big trouble regardless. The race/gender issue is really his only shot at winning. Hillary would beat him pretty easily, but fortunately for us, she won’t be the nominee.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I recall the 2000 election when several economic modelers (I think Fair among them) were predicting a blowout Gore win, by Nixon-McGovern sort of numbers.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
There really needs to be a “unusually $hitty candidate at the top of the ticket” variable.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Those qualitative variables make economists uncomfortable. Sounds like Poli Sci rubbish
May 1st, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Its time to stop being Hillary cheerleaders guys. She would be stronger than ever now.