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Trump and Sanders Test Economic Model Predicting a G.O.P. Win

If this were anything like a normal year, the Republicans would be favored to take the White House. That, at least, is what Ray Fair’s economic model has been saying consistently since November 2014.

Mr. Fair, a professor of economics at Yale and the author of “Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things,” also says his model may well be wrong about this election. “Each election has weird things in it, yet the model usually works pretty well,” he said. “This year, though, I don’t know. This year really could be different.”

Professor Fair has been tracking and predicting elections in real time since 1978 with a good deal of success, using an approach that continues to be provocative. He ruthlessly excludes nearly all the details that are the basic diet of conventional political analysts — items like the burning issues of the day, the identities, personalities and speeches of the candidates and the strength of their campaign organizations. In fact, his model pays no attention whatsoever to the day-to-day fireworks of the political campaigns.

Read entire article at NYT