Economist: Numbers Add up to Democratic Victory in '08
By CQ Staff | 11:01 AM; Sep. 24, 2007 | Email This Article
By Clea Benson, CQ Staff
Yale University economist Ray C. Fair uses a mathematical formula to predict the outcome of presidential elections based on the state of the national economy. He plugs in numbers accounting for the growth rate, inflation rate, influence of incumbency and other factors, and he projects the winning party and margin. In most election years, he’s close.
Right now, Fair is forecasting that the Democrats will come out on top in 2008 by 2 percentage points. Still, he and others say there’s time for that to change in either direction.
“The die is not yet cast, because we do have about five quarters to go before the election.” Fair said last week. “The vote equation says that people do wait until those quarters to decide.”
While pollsters and experts say that a critical cross-section of voters are increasingly anxious about long-term problems such as how they will pay for health care and college for their children, there is another layer to the economic-political equation. Trouble in the broad economy could exacerbate that anxiety sometime before Americans head to the polls 13 months from now. With housing in turmoil, the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates, stock prices gyrating and the latest statistics showing unexpected job losses, even experienced prognosticators aren’t certain what shape the economy will be in then.
But if the economy worsens, voters would suddenly be focused not just on retirement and college costs, but on more urgent needs, such as keeping their homes and jobs.
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