Barack Obama Will Win the Presidency, Political Scientists Forecast
Using various forecasting models with variables that included GDP growth, presidential approval, fiscal policy, the leading economic indicators (LEI), and primary results in New Hampshire as predictors of the two-party vote share, the various political scientists agreed that Obama was highly likely to win the presidency–with the exception of James Campbell, who blogs for Britannica; Campbell, whose prediction won’t be released until next week, since his model relies on the Gallup Labor Day polls (and it’s not Labor Day yet), believes it will be an extremely close election, with a slight advantage to John McCain.
The run-down of the predictions and models:
- Tom Holbrook (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee): Model focuses on personal economic conditions and presidential approval. Two-party share of the vote: Obama 55.5%. Obama has a 92% chance of winning.
- Chris Wlezien (Temple University): Model variables include leading economic indicators and polls. Two-party share of the vote: Obama 52.2% based on August polls. Obama has a 72% chance of winning.
- Brad Lockerbie (East Carolina University): model looks at consumer attitudes and behavior and polls. He notes that economic expectations are the second worst since polls have been able to answer this question (in 1980 voters were more pessimistic). Two-party share of the vote: Obama 58%. (He also predicted a 25-seat loss in the House for Republicans.)
- Helmut Norpoth (SUNY, Stony Brook): Using a New Hampshire primary model and an electoral cycle variable (taking account as to whether the incumbent party had held the presidency for two terms or longer), his talk was entitled “On the Razor’s Edge.” Two-party share of the vote: Obama in a nailbiter with 50.1%.
- Alfred Cuzan (University of West Florida): In a talk presented by Randy Jones, Cuzan’s model is based on fiscal policy–that is, that if the share of government spending of GDP increases the incumbent party is penalized by voters. Their model also uses economic growth and length of term of the president’s party. Two-party share of the vote: Obama 51.9%.
- Michael Lewis-Beck (University of Iowa): Lewis-Beck’s model looks at economic growth, presidential popularity, jobs creation, and incumbency. His initial model predicts Obama to carry 56.58% of the two-party vote share. BUT, he notes that one cannot extrapolate beyond their data and that Obama’s candidacy, as the first African American candidate. So, attempting to tease out the race factor, he eventually concludes that 11.5% of voters would never vote for an African American candidate and that there will be a 6.51% penalty for Obama. Two-party share of the vote: Obama 50.07%. Calling this a potential Bermuda Triangle election, he notes that there could be an inversion between the popular and electoral vote a la 2000.
- Alan Abramowitz (Emory University): Boasting he has never been wrong in 20 years, Abramowitz’s model looks at GDP growth, presidential approval, and a “time for change” factor. Two-party share of the vote:Obama 54.3%
- James Campbell (University at Buffalo, SUNY): His model takes into account polls at Labor Day and the economy (GDP). As noted above, he can’t release his final prediction for a few days, but if McCain is at 46% of the two-party poll on Labor Day, he predicts McCain would get about 50% of the vote, meaning that it’s likely to be a close election, with a slight lead for McCain–thus making Campbell the odd political scientist out in Boston on the panel. Perhaps an enviable position to be in.
It was a really intriguing panel as the speakers went through their various methodologies, and voters will have the chance to prove these projections right—or wrong.
And, as James Campbell noted, predictions by political scientists are always wrong.
Of course, it doesn’t stop them from making them.