A Republican reportedly is expected to win the White House under two economic models that have accurately forecast presidential elections for decades.
A third model run by Moody’s Analytics predicts Democrats will win the White House, in part because of President Obama’s rising approval rating,
The Hill.com reports.
However, “the three models are being challenged like never before by the presence of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, whose campaign has shaken up politics,” The Hill's Vicki Needham explains.
“As economists this is a very unusual election and there’s a lot more uncertainty introduced this time around that could upset the balance and the historical relationship of how marginal voters vote,” Dan White, an economist with Moody’s Analytics who oversees the firm’s monthly election model, told The Hill.
Ray Fair, a Yale professor who launched his model in 1978, told The Hill that while all elections include unruly features that an economic model can’t pick up, this one seems particularly unusual. “If there’s any time in which personalities would trump the economy it would be this election,” Fair said.
"Fair’s model has correctly forecast all but three presidential races since 1916 but was wrong in 2012, when it predicted a narrow loss for Obama to Mitt Romney," The Hill reported.
Fair’s model “relies on just three pieces of information: per capita growth rate of gross domestic product in the three quarters before an election, inflation over the entire presidential term and the number of quarters during the term growth per capita exceeds 3.2 percent,” The Hill reported.
The other two models, unlike Fair’s, consider the incumbent president’s approval rating. In both cases, Obama’s improved rating helps his party’s chances of winning the White House. But only one of those models predicts a Democratic win, The Hill reported.
Emory University’s Alan Abramowitz, whose model has correctly predicted every outcome since 1992, also forecasts a Republican win, The Hill reports.
To be sure, Barron’s also has picked a Republican as the best presidential bet to save the nation and economy.
Ohio Governor John Kasich is the “Republicans’ best hope to win the presidency” in a face-off with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, according to a Barron’s front-page story this week.
“Unlike Clinton, Kasich has a sensible across-the-board tax-cutting agenda for corporations, individuals, and investors,” the magazine says. “And as a Republican president working with a presumably GOP-controlled Congress, he would be a more effective leader. After all, he spent six years as the chairman of the House Budget Committee, so he knows how to broker a deal.”
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