Posted on 09/20/2012 10:34:23 AM PDT by Signalman
Full Title:
"Analysis of election factors points to Romney win, University of Colorado study says"
A University of Colorado analysis of state-by-state factors leading to the Electoral College selection of every U.S. president since 1980 forecasts that the 2012 winner will be Mitt Romney.
The key is the economy, say political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver. Their prediction model stresses economic data from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, including both state and national unemployment figures as well as changes in real per capita income, among other factors.
“Based on our forecasting model, it becomes clear that the president is in electoral trouble,” said Bickers, also director of the CU in DC Internship Program.
According to their analysis, President Barack Obama will win 218 votes in the Electoral College, short of the 270 he needs. And though they chiefly focus on the Electoral College, the political scientists predict Romney will win 52.9 percent of the popular vote to Obama’s 47.1 percent, when considering only the two major political parties.
“For the last eight presidential elections, this model has correctly predicted the winner,” said Berry. “The economy has seen some improvement since President Obama took office. What remains to be seen is whether voters will consider the economy in relative or absolute terms. If it’s the former, the president may receive credit for the economy’s trajectory and win a second term. In the latter case, Romney should pick up a number of states Obama won in 2008.”
Their model correctly predicted all elections since 1980, including two years when independent candidates ran strongly, 1980 and 1992. It also correctly predicted the outcome in 2000, when Al Gore received the most popular vote but George W. Bush won the election.
The study will be published this month in PS: Political Science & Politics, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Political Science Association. It will be among about a dozen election prediction models, but one of only two to focus on the Electoral College.
While many forecast models are based on the popular vote, the Electoral College model developed by Bickers and Berry is the only one of its type to include more than one state-level measure of economic conditions.
In addition to state and national unemployment rates, the authors looked at per capita income, which indicates the extent to which people have more or less disposable income. Research shows that these two factors affect the major parties differently: Voters hold Democrats more responsible for unemployment rates while Republicans are held more responsible for per capita income.
Accordingly -- and depending largely on which party is in the White House at the time -- each factor can either help or hurt the major parties disproportionately.
Their results show that “the apparent advantage of being a Democratic candidate and holding the White House disappears when the national unemployment rate hits 5.6 percent,” Berry said. The results indicate, according to Bickers, “that the incumbency advantage enjoyed by President Obama, though statistically significant, is not great enough to offset high rates of unemployment currently experienced in many of the states.”
In an examination of other factors, the authors found that none of the following had any statistically significant effect on whether a state ultimately went for a particular candidate: The location of a party’s national convention; the home state of the vice president; or the partisanship of state governors.
In 2012, “What is striking about our state-level economic indicator forecast is the expectation that Obama will lose almost all of the states currently considered as swing states, including North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida,” Bickers said.
In Colorado, which went for Obama in 2008, the model predicts that Romney will receive 51.9 percent of the vote to Obama’s 48.1 percent, again with only the two major parties considered.
The authors also provided caveats. Factors they said may affect their prediction include the timeframe of the economic data used in the study and close tallies in certain states. The current data was taken five months in advance of the Nov. 6 election and they plan to update it with more current economic data in September. A second factor is that states very close to a 50-50 split may fall an unexpected direction.
“As scholars and pundits well know, each election has unique elements that could lead one or more states to behave in ways in a particular election that the model is unable to correctly predict,” Berry said.
Election prediction models “suggest that presidential elections are about big things and the stewardship of the national economy,” Bickers said. “It’s not about gaffes, political commercials or day-to-day campaign tactics. I find that heartening for our democracy.”
“Romney will win 52.9 percent of the popular vote to Obama’s 47.1 percent”
You know, thanks to the Romney video, that these particular numbers will stick in Obama’s craw!
The most important thing and Obama can't run on it.
This is over a month old and has been posted repeatedly.
Nothing new here and who knows if it has changed
This would be even better, but our side, especially the politicians and the media on our side, never complete an argument, and it’s jeopardizing the future of our country. WHY do we continue to refer to “8 percent” unemployment, when that number has gone down only because 9 million people have given up looking for work with Obama as president, and thus they are no longer considered “unemployed” and no longer included in the “unemployment” number. Why can’t we add 30 words or so — it would take just a few seconds — and say that “unemployment stands at 8.1 percent, but that number has dropped only because when people give up looking for a job — as 9 million have with Obama as president — they are no longer counted as unemployed. Unemployment counting the people who have given up is 11.4 percent.” PLEASE respond in discussions in some similar way and PLEASE encourage our politicians and our media friends to hammer on this fact. PLEASE. Again, unemployment counting the people who have given up is 11.4 percent. And that doesn’t count the people who work part-time but want to work full-time. PLEASE complete the argument. Numbers have a strong psychological impact.
Love your screen name. Tried to convince my bride four different times to name a child after Joshua Chamberlain...no dice.
WHAT???
Wondered if you had seen this, and also wondered what the guy at Harvard who makes similar predictions had to say this year.
The rats are well aware of the numbers as shown by their weekly adjustment of the previous numbers reported. What a joke.
The unemployed know they’re unemployed regardless of MSM announcements - I suppose Obama just hopes they’re happy with their food stamps and disability checks.
Can you believe that?
I’ll assume the guy is an O’Tron trying to make himself feel better, somehow.
I think you are referring to Alan Lichman at George Wash U who has a "keys to victory" formula.
“Love your screen name”
It’s just too bad he fought for the wrong side.
Ah yes, I think it was Lichman. Any idea what his pick was this year?
I can believe anything these days
Never mind, looked it up. This may make you more or less nervous. Lichtman has been right 7 out of 7, and he picked Obama.
So, if streaks are made to be broken, one of these has to be broken. That said, Lichtman made his prediction more than a year ago and it may be that his model works in a normal recovery but not one where the unemployment rate doesn’t move.
I think it’s like an eBay auction, the winner will be decided in a very short period of time just prior to the election. Ups and downs of public opinion, the impact of unforseen events, international unrest, global financials, media antics, and voter turnout will have enormous impact that cannot be predicted today by anyone. If you doubt this, just consider what effect it might have if a terrorist attack were to occur in mid-October.
LOL & BTTT
It will be interesting to watch how Romney handles the issue of the economy. If he’s paying attention to these guys, I’d expect him to hammer the fact that “Obama has made things worse”. This is Romneys strong suit, and according to the CU research, the pivotal issue that will determine whether Obama gets re-elected or not.
I don’t think people need to be beaten over the head to convince them that things aren’t better than they were 4 years ago...they all know it because they live it every day. But Romney and Ryan need to remind them in powerful ways - like “every time you drop $50 to fill your gas tank, remember that would have been $25 but for Obamas disastrous policies”.
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