Economics projects a 94 EV defeat for Barack Obama

By: Neil Stevens (Diary) | February 3rd, 2012 at 05:30 PM |

RESIZE: AAA

Over at the American Enterprise Institute, James Pethokoukis modeled the economy and the effect of the economy on the 2012 elections. He calculated what unemployment would look like under 28 different scenarios, varying both job and labor force growth rates to cover the range of possibilities, ad the results look bad if there’s any sort of return to the previous trend, should job growth rates not grow sharply.

Even worse for the President, Pethokoukis applied a model by Ray Fair to guess the resulting share of the vote Barack Obama will win based on likely GDP growth rates. Pethokoukis calls the resulting prediction a “close race,” but it actually isn’t. Using Swingometer and some simple math, I think the prediction is one of a nearly 100 EV win for the Republican nominee.

Pethokoukis uses Fair’s model to project that the Obama/Biden ticket should get 47.8% of the two-party popular vote in November, if the economy sees 2% growth this year. In 2008, the McCain/Palin ticket received 46.3% of the two-party vote, meaning Obama had a 7.4 point lead. For Obama to get only 47.8% would give the Republican ticket a 4.4 point lead in the two-party vote, meaning the prediction is of an 11.8 point swing from Democrats to Republicans from 2008 to 2012.

The Swingometers at Unlikely Voter happen to work with swings in the two party vote. We can take that 11.8 and plug it right in. The result is not particularly close, in my opinion:

Swingometer

That’s right: Using the Pethokoukis figures and plugging them into my Swingometer, 2% GDP growth predicts a 316-222 Electoral College victory for the Republicans. Republicans swing Nebraska’s second district, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, and even Maine’s second district. I don’t call that a close contest at all. 94 EVs would be the biggest Republican win since 1988.

We can’t really expect old-fashioned blowouts anymore, though. In 1956, 1964, and 1980, the parties and the nation were less polarized on the issues and on philosophy. There were conservative Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans. Republicans and Democrats could easily find themselves preferring the other party’s candidate. Now, though, conservative Democrats are gone, the Rockefeller Republicans are gone, and the nation is polarized. Democrats aren’t going to win Texas and Republicans aren’t going to win California.

So a nearly 100 EV win I don’t call particularly close on the modern scale. Certainly, in this scenario, we’re not having a late night wondering who won.

Tags: 2012, Barack Obama, DOOM, Economy, GDP, Growth, James Pethokoukis, President, Ray Fair, Swingometer, Unemployment

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swami7774

….to God’s ears, Neil.
earlgrey

Isn’t that the big news of today?

The Dow is even up and you better believe Yahoo News is all over it!
jakeofalltrades

I love me some Neilian meta-analysis, and this is good news.

How strong is the correlation, Neil?
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

I assume Fair’s work is based on a regression or something, but it’s not what I’m familiar with. My part’s just the swingometer side, which is a pure swing based tool.
daveoconnor

model backtested to 1916 and in actual use has a MOE of about 2.7%, not bad at all. It would be even better if you tossed the ’92 numbers out (Perot. I suppose)
I talked to Fair about three weeks ago and he still sees a close election looking only at the popular vote. A very key thing for Pres Obama will be the number or lack of what Fair calls “good news” quarters where GDP grows more than 3.2% He has had one so far during his presidency. He has three more quarters left since the Q4-2012 obviously won’t factor into the election.
Also, Fair uses his own model to predict the US economy and told me it had been too optimistic so far. If you go to his link you can read his original article with updates to understand how the model works. You also can plug in different numbers to see what the EV is.
The latest CBO projections are bad news for O. We’ll see.
Interestingly the EV for generic Democrats in congrees is quite alarming for Dems.Also, Fair’s model cares not a hoot who the candidates are. It’s based strongly on the economy, war is a factor and incumbency is a weak factor.
Very interesting post.
DerKrieger

…we need to return to federalism.

Now, though, conservative Democrats are gone, the Rockefeller Republicans are gone, and the nation is polarized. Democrats aren?t going to win Texas and Republicans aren?t going to win California.

Why continue to wage war over policy when we’ll never agre with one another? Better to return decision making to the states and leave only truly national policy with the Feds.
jakeofalltrades

Two of the three factors used have very strong predictive power (as high as -1.08… perfect prediction is +/- 1.00), and the third factor (GDP deflator – whatever that is) is weaker but still predictive at -1.42, since 1960 anyway.

That model looks extremely predictive. I won’t be betting against it – that would just be scientifically stupid.
jakeofalltrades

Link.
http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

did Pethokoukis(one of my favorite economists) take into account the deliberate manipulation of the currency that is likely to happen in the second half of 2012? Obama will pull out all of the stops and the recent evidence is that Bernanke is his creature.
banzaibob

or just 1 as long as 0bama is deafeated.
Death_of_the_Donkey

and that is James is getting confused with the two surveys. The household survey has its own jobs created number each month (that is never reported), which is one of the factors in the unemployment rate. This job creation number has shown that since September we have added over 1.5 million new jobs (including 847k this month, although 200k of that were from the census revisions). Thus, if the household keeps outperforming, the scenario he needs to be looking at is the +>300k/month one.
johnjohn23

Let’s not get cocky guys. The swingometer is a change to the whole country. McCain go 46% of the vote but lost the EC by 180 votes. If the country swings right by 11.8pts but, for example, pennsylvania, iowa, nh and new mexico only swing by 9 instead of 11.8 Obama will keep the White House. We have a lot of work to do.

I’d be weary of any map that suggests we pick up Pennsylvania without Santorum on the ticket. Who is to say they won’t blame the state republicans as much as the federal democrats?
snowshooze

It would have been nice to have a good conservative one.
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

MIght as well back Mittens.
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

.
civildebate

No way Minnesota turns red.
qsclues

Being a Minnesotan myself, I’m inclined to agree, except in one case: If Pawlenty somehow ends up as the VP choice, then I could see MN turning red, despite the fact that it hasn’t been so in my lifetime.

Of course, we should also remember that Minnesota is truly The Land That Logic Forgot when it comes to politics (Legislature shifted right in 2010, but we elected our first Dem Governor since 1990…huh?), so anything could happen here.
qsclues

It was also noted that the strongest recoveries are being seen in IN, OH, MI and PA. (I think WI is also doing well.) Is it just me, or did all of those states take a hard turn right in 2010? Don’t suppose that had anything to do with it…
civildebate

would be a good choice for VP because he’s a smart guy that appeals to moderates and has zero baggage. He’s not a truly conservative though.
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

,
snowshooze

Including my dog, Otter.
We have lost a couple fairly good candidates over ” Electability ”
And have blasted holes through our own feet. ( Probably to a lessor extent in the RedState crowd, but it is here too.)
Somewhere’s around here, I saw a thread encouraging people to make ” Perry, come home ” videos and post them to youtube…
Pretty sad. I think he was a victim of both ” Electability ” and the MSM blackout.
They worked hand-in-pants to ice him.
Great job, guys.
You Romneyaks are the most guilty of all.
usedtobelib

the media will play up the numbers. It doesn’t matter to them that along with the improved number today, the number of people NOT seeking work went up by huge numbers.

I was just listening to the John Bachelor show with Dan Henninger as his guest. Henninger spoke of the success that Obama seems to be having taking his SOTU speech, dud that it was on tv, on the road.

He said that 6,000 Intel workers in AZ were wildly cheering Obama with that speech, especially when he speaks of creating “An America that Lasts.”

As Henninger points out, the crowd was and educated (although young), yet still seemed not to understand that Obama was really running against his own record. He has the rhetorical chops to do it.

Personally, I feel it’s a race thing and a pop culture thing. 1) Americans, particularly the educated young, do NOT want to be the generation that turns out of office the first African-American elected to the Presidency. Every generation has its vanity, the lies it tells itself in order to maintain an inflated sense of self-worth: those of certain age groups lie to themselves that THEY are responsible for the historical election of the first minority President and they (esp. those with jobw) will protect that vanity at all costs.

2.) This President, as a black man (okay, a bi-racial man, but face it, few look at him that way), plays hoops, dances on Ellen, sings at the Apollo, and the young and the “cool” just can’t consider turning him out. Sad, but that is what matters to many who vote.

Henninger pointed out that Obama is hoping to present himself as the heart of American, knowing Romney or other GOPers will present themselves as the brains of Amerian. Heart trumps brains, unless the opponent keeps pointing out that no brains means no lasting jobs.

We are in a fix and it’s mostly a media-controlled fix.

What to do? I can’t see Romney’s team coming up with a strategy to beat Obama at his own game. They have to have game of their own, but I don’t know that Romney has the language that can speak to the brain of the American people.
moosewing

Dayton won in a three way race, with the other two both more conservative. It could happen.
tngal

I’m sure its something he keeps up a lot with and I trust West with this. He points out unemployment with blacks

While the overall unemployment rate is theortetically down to 8.3 percent with todays numbers — West notes in the black community unemployment was 15.8 percent and nw its down to 13.6.
____
“Can someone tell me how employment in the black community has improved at a rate three times the national average in just a few months??

And:

“There is something suspicious about the job numbers released today and it has me very concerned,” West wondered Friday. “Is this dramatic supposed decrease in black unemployment a result of job creation or is someone playing around with the census numbers??”
____

Does smell like someone is trying to make things all rosy for an upcoming election. Not sure if even the swingometer can take into account something like fudging.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/208613-rep-west-responds-to-jobs-report-someone-messing-with-census-numbers
SoFiMil

And regardless, I’d rather go down swinging and keep my dignity than hold my nose for someone without a core ideology.
usedtobelib

I can’t quote the guy, but some economic analyst on the radio taody said that new population growth was figured into these numbers.
snowshooze

What are we trying to prove? That we can do worse?
Apparently, we can.
daveoconnor

I don’t buy that he would help all that much.
I worked on his first campaign and know him to be a very fine man. Privately he is very conservative. His record in the senate was mixed but remember the “Republican T” in PA will take you just so far; a state-wide GOP candidate has to limit Dem margins outside the T particularly in Philly and PGH.
Rick was surprisingly unpopular when he ran for his third senate term. He was beaten by light-weight Bob Casey Jr. 2006 was a bad GOP year, but when you go down by 18 points as an incumbent the results are telling you something.
PA will be in play I believe because of things like Keystone and the violation of conscience dictates. PA is religious and socially conservative. The GOP can take it this time.
daveoconnor

helped force Perry out then he was a goner from the get go. I think Jon Huntsman would have been a dynamite candidate, but he couldn’t convince even 20% of NH even as he camped out there. No excuses, no conspiracy plots. Perry looked at his chances and quit, period. He may well be back next time. People seem to forget that Romney was whipped four years ago and worked hard to make sure he would be competitive this go round. He actually gets criticized for being the best prepared! And I think that’s really been the difference. All of the other hopefuls with the possible exception of Paul had and have flawed operations.
civildebate

Obama has a sizable lead over everyone else there.
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

Oh wait.
Adjoran

is the massive attack on our nominee. Obama can’t really run on his record, he will lie about it like he is doing now and blame everyone else for problems while his PACs and the DNC run the nastiest campaign since 1824.

A guy with Gingrich’s baggage will be in tatters early and hurt the whole down-ticket. A squeaky clean boring but competent type would fare best – which is why I backed Pawlenty, which didn’t work out. Daniels would be similar. Of those in the race, Romney is closest, but Santorum is also clean personally.

As Emmett Tyrrell has pointed out, there is a lot of Gingrich scandal which never got aired because he quit, and not the Ethics Committee stuff, either. He figures is he knows about them, the Democrats know about them and more, which is why all the Dem-leaning PACs were attacking Romney in Florida and leaving Gingrich alone.
civildebate

The Dems have a good shot in Arkansas and Kentucky.
And how likely was CA and NY to flip red with Arnold and Rudy as governors?
renl57

…then he can’t survive the general election campaign.

If Perry could be “forced out” by a few disastrous debate performances and negative ads during the GOP primary contest, how could he survive the $1 billion onslaught that Obama would throw at him?

And remember that the exact same liberal reporters who have been moderating the GOP primary debates, would be moderating the Obama-Perry debates. Perry would stumble just once and he would lose, just as Ford and Dukakis were doomed after they stumbled in their debates.

One of the nice things about the primary contests is they show us clearly who the real tough candidates are. Quitters never win.
renl57

There is an inverse correlation between age and support of same-sex marriage, for example. The younger a voter is, the more likely he supports same-sex marriage.

And young people today experiment with every variety of sex and some varieties of drugs, just like you and I did in our youth.

So that makes young people more likely to oppose the kind of social conservatism that runs strongest in the GOP.

So libertarianism tends to run strongest among youngsters. From the surveys I’ve seen, they see the GOP as older moral scolds. IOW, the GOP reminds them of their parents whom they’ve recently asserted their independence from.

That’s why Ron Paul has nearly the same youth appeal as Obama does, even though he’s a Republican. He’s libertarian rather than socially conservative, which is a real turnoff for the young and hip.
renl57

His analysis uses job growth as a percentage of the population. And he finds that historically, it correlates more with the outcome of the election than most other economic factors.

His analysis for this year comes out this way: If job growth remains at or above 155,000 jobs per month, Obama is favored to win re-election. Below that number, not so much.

http://tinyurl.com/7jvm5pv

One more thing. Silver points out that economic forecasts do NOT include the issue of a candidate who completely screws up in front of the voters, like McGovern did in 1972.

It’s usually true that the candidate is less important than fundamental factors like the economy–but not if the candidate is so far out of the mainstream that the voters just can’t stomach him or her.

The most recent example is Sharron Angle, who totally botched a totally winnable election by acting as someone the Independent voters just couldn’t accept.

And IMO, Newt Gingrich is this year’s version of Sharron Angle.
freemanja1991

NV, and MI be in our column, and maybe even WI?
naraht

I’m *really* not sure that Santorum would count as a Favorite Son, making the Republicans more likely to take Pennsylvania with Santorum on the ticket than if he isn’t.

Frankly given the fact that some of the Big Ten (Football) states that Obama took have relatively controversial governors (Wisc, Ohio), I think the VP candidate most likely to help would be Virginia governor Bob McDonnell.
renny

None of this we are so pure we will throw over the election to prove some nebulous point. We MUST win and the o and mobster crew MUST be gone by this time next year.
SoFiMil

That’s for my primary vote. And unless a candidate is a flaming racist like Ron Paul or supports abortion on demand, the threshold is 51% in the general. But you are correct re the 100%ers, be they libertarians or conservatives. No one, save Him, is perfect.
naraht

I personally think 1884 was probably uglier with the accusations of the child of Cleveland’s born out of wedlock, but maybe that’s just me.

For Romney, the accusations in the General with be about what he did at Bain, but all of them are about him being “Heartless”, not illegal. I really have no idea what attacks there would be in the General about what he did as Massachusetts Governor (think about that) and the only thing I’ve seen come up in the Personal area is “dog on the roof” which I think is played out already.
renny

in 2006, which is not an encouraging number to believe he has to be on the ticket to pull PA. PA, like OH, IN, WI, FL, all have Rep. gov.’s and legislatures, part of the 2010 revolution, and none are doing so bad that the o’s oppressive policies (Bush tax cut losses, new ocare impositions–3.8% surcharges on house sales in a market still dead since 2008, yadda) should look at all appealing.

As to young people, since I see them daily at the college where I teach, the mention of o’s name produces derisive laughter. They all have older siblings who graduated and can’t get interviews,let along jobs, or have parents out of work, and even the posters on office doors and car bumper stickers on all of the faculty are GONE.

The bloom is off the rose. I think o’s election was a fluke based on his skin color, his “charm, “the 2008 crash, Bush weariness, and lots of fraud. McCain still won 48% (o won 52% compared to Bush’ 51% in 2004) of the vote and 85% of all US counties.

To stop o in iffy states, the GOP and tea parties need to have voter registration drives and presences in polling booths in the cities.
naraht

9000 votes difference and they’d be saying on Kos that Emmer won in a three way race with the other two both more liberal…

*shrug*
Ketih W

A friend of mine pointed out that as we get closer to the election that the news media will talk up the economy? Also hasn’t Holder basically given a green light to groups like the New Black Panthers that he won’t go after black on white voter intimdation? That the Democrats won’t pull out every dirty trick in the book to get Obama reelected. My friend feels that the whole debate and primary process is all for naught that Obama has it in the bag for a second term. He hopes he is wrong and I do too, but he is convinced he is right. Please tell me he wrong. Give me something to back my conviction up with, please.
carolina

I hope that same sentiment holds on college campuses across the nation.
Joe Cor

to have cruised to victory in 2004 based on economic projections. Instead, it was a nail biter. Should Gore have not cruised to victory in 2000 based on the economy?

Perhaps there was a time when the economy was a great indicator of electoral outcomes. But now economic news is reported much less honestly. And while my eyes glaze over trying to sort out the details over whether this 1.2 million drop in the labor force was or was not legitimate, there may actually have been a significant drop in unemployment. People will almost certainly perceive it that way at any rate.

This election will probably have to be won on a message of Obamacare and economic liberty. Republicans better wise up to that instead of hoping for an anemic economy to do their job for them.
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

..
sandiegovoter

Ron Brownstein just wrote an article in the L.A. Times along these lines. Obama is incredibly vulnerable this year.

He did not tack to the center as Clinton and Bush did in their first terms. Obama has courted the support of wealthy liberals like George Soros, Haim Saban, Barbara Streisand, Oprah, and Steve Bing.

Obama’s policies are far more friendly to environmental extremists than to regular folks who just want to earn a living and have the kind of life that their parents had or slightly better.

A lot of people are out of work. If a Republican president were carrying this type of economy around as baggage, the media would have already written his post-mortem and all of the focus would be on how great the coming utopia would be under a far-left democrat bent on “fixing” all of the problems caused by Republicans.

Even with the media squarely in his corner, Obama will have a hard time getting re-elected. His is the most inept president we have ever had. He has gotten the U.S. into so much debt that it will be difficult for us to recover. Any Republican who has a workable plan to get us out of debt has my attention, and eventually will have my vote. The solution cannot be either (1) borrow more money, or (2) increase entitlement spending. The solution must involve massive cuts to spending on a level never seen before in American history.
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

Are they winnable? Possible. It just takes a larger swing in that particular state than predicted.
sandiegovoter

Romney could steal Michigan, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Indiana, Ohio, and North Carolina from Obama. He just has to pick the right running mate and be prepared for the media to join forces with the liberal White House and some misguided conservatives in trying to take him down.

He will be the best president since Reagan if he gets in.
sandiegovoter

First, we were in a war. Second, the economy was doing fairly well. The unemployment rate was far lower than it is now and Americans had disposable income.

Now, Americans are out of work and they’re angry. Obama’s only “solution” has been to borrow money and pass new entitlement programs that we couldn’t even afford when the economy was good. Most of the cost of Obamacare doesn’t start until 2013. Once that happens, the economy will plumb new depths. Unless we get a president in who will repeal Obamacare as all of the Republican candidates have promised to do.
jomo2009

it’s great to see the swing-o-meter getting fired up for what will be a long,hard slog of a campaign.
SoFiMil

And North Carolina is going Republican no matter who runs. Romney is owed no deference on this.
naraht

I’ve seen the counties comment made before and it seems less important than which candidate is taller. For example Texas has four times the number of counties that California. Probably the equivalent stat from the other side is X of the countires largest 20 cities voted for the Dems.

The most extreme example I’ve seen is Maryland 1994. Maryland has 23 counties and the city of Baltimore. The republican candidate Sauerbrey won 21 counties and still lost the election.
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Economics projects a 94 EV defeat for Barack Obama

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