Incumbents Polling Below 50 Percent Often Win Re-Election, Despite Conventional Wisdom

NYT ^ | Oct 2010 | NATE SILVER

[xzins]

If you combine the three types of incumbents — House, Senate, governor — they had a record of 66-17, which equates to a winning percentage of 80 percent. Depending on how you define the term, they may not have been “safe” for re-election — but certainly, most were favorites.

There is also not any particular evidence that, as Mr. Trende suggests, the majority of the undecided vote broke against the incumbents. On average, the incumbent candidates led by 8.1 points in the polls with 30 days to go; they won their elections by an average of 7.2 points. That’s not a huge difference, needless to say.

So, is there anything at all to the theory? A couple of qualifiers are in order:

First, as I stated above, if an incumbent is trailing in the polls, that’s a whole different matter. An incumbent is usually going to lose if he’s at 43 percent in the polls, and his opponent is at 48 percent. His problem, however, is less that he’s polling at 43 percent — and more that his opponent has a better number!

[xzins]

Instead of beating on the NYT, we should beating on the GOP-e demanding to know why they mainlined this crappy candidate.

[jiggyboy]

Before I saw that this was written in 2010, I assumed this was a kind of a propaganda piece for the 2012 election to show that President Obama could be assured of election because of statistics related to Senators, Representatives, and Governors.

But it was in fact a kind of a propaganda piece for the 2010 elections.

[VRWC For Truth]

IIRC the tea party and Palin had a high percentage of incumbents tossed in the races that they targeted. The author fails to realize that 20% times 5 election cycles = 100%. 2012 is going to be a blood bath for incumbents. A number of losers saw the 2012 writing on the wall, example: Yellow Snowe (D-Rino) Maine.

[xzins]

whatever it is that “presidents do not”, I can safely say that they “do not” do it twice. :>)

[Longbow1969]

LOL ;) The reality is that we probably agree on 90% of the actual issues, its just the few areas we don’t get contentious now and again.

Cheers!

[pabianice]

Graveyard, meet Whistle.

[EternalVigilance]

Badabing.

[Wordkraft]

Wow. What a revelation. The guy who gets more votes wins. Amazing.
Except if your name is Al Franken...

Or you have a large “D” behind your name.

[libdestroyer]

Hah, this statistical chicanery is laughable even knowing that it’s the Slimes. Take a specific statistic, include seemingly-related results for what are really not related events, and use the now-inverted, wholly invalid results to refute the original specific statistic. Numbers don’t lie!

Use enough 5-dollar words in that post?

[DUMBGRUNT]

He who doubts victory has already lost the battle.

So you going to vote for obama again?

[NELSON111]

That's what I am sitting here thinkng. This is pure mathmatics. This should not, in any way, be open to interpretation.

Find some Presidential, Senate, House and governors races where the incumbants were below 50%...and see how many of them won....REGARDLESS of whether they were ahead or not.

That should prove dick morris right or wrong.

[backwoods-engineer]

Instead of beating on the NYT, we should beating on the GOP-e demanding to know why they mainlined this crappy candidate.

A pox on them both. Dude, I am NEVER going to pass up an opportunity to bust on the commie NYT. If you want to bash the GOP-e, too, well I agree. Both of them want to take us away from the Constitutional order. Romney is just as statist as Obama, he just wants to take us to the Brave New World a little more slowly, that's all.

[DarthVader]

Wishful thinking from Nate Rust of the NY Slimes.

[WOSG]

LOL. Written right before the massive shellacking the Democrat incumbents got in 2010, used to calm their fears about losing big.

They lost big.

Nothing is set in stone, but will be a close election in 2012, just going by the base of support on each side.

All we have to do to let Obama destroy our country with leftist policies? Not stop his re-election.

[kabar]

Old or not, the point is that Obama has had approval ratings below 50% for some time. No matter what the data show, the MSM will have you believe that Obama will be the exception to the rule whether it is high unemployment levels, unpopular policies, the country being on the good or wrong track, etc. As we get closer to election day, we will see more of the same.

NB: This article was written in October 2010 just before the midterms. The MSM tried to discount the impact of the Tea Party or the fact that many Dem incumbents were running below 50% favorability. We know how the 2010 midterms turned out. I wonder how that affects the data in the article.

[kabar]

Old or not, the point is that Obama has had approval ratings below 50% for some time. No matter what the data show, the MSM will have you believe that Obama will be the exception to the rule whether it is high unemployment levels, unpopular policies, the country being on the good or wrong track, etc. As we get closer to election day, we will see more of the same.

NB: This article was written in October 2010 just before the midterms. The MSM tried to discount the impact of the Tea Party or the fact that many Dem incumbents were running below 50% favorability. We know how the 2010 midterms turned out. I wonder how that affects the data in the article.

[Mamzelle]

re: i think you really have to be soft in the head to think romney stands any chance of winning in november. he will get slammed harder than mccain did. the guy just isn’t likeable, he’s totally craven on conservative issues, and he doesn’t provide enough of a positive distinction between him and obama. romney’s campaign is doa. absolutely no one cares.

Welcome to FR. So, do you think all us conservatives should stay home on election day?

[Republican Extremist]

[Colonel_Flagg]

Badabing.

Thanks. I'll be here all week.

[xzins]

presidents do not

Too easy to check, SoFlo. Bush vs Kerry at exactly the same May time frame as now. Notice that Bush (who won) is polling under 50%, and in fact was polling just about where Obama is right now. Even at the time of the election, Bush polled 49% or lower in 10 of the last 12 polls. BUT, he was polling higher than Kerry. The article is shown to be correct in its research. Dick Morris is shown again to be a Trojan Horse (But FoxNews loves the man for some reason.)

So, the research in the article is right. This ONE example proves it for a presidential campaign. And, it's a recent presidential election.

Data is from the archives of Real Clear Politics

Insider Advantage	5/21-5/22	43%	43%	4%	TIE
Wash Post/ABC News	5/20-5/23	46%	46%	4%	TIE
CBS News	5/20-5/23	41%	47%	5%	Kerry +6
Fox News	5/18-5/19	40%	40%	3%	TIE
TIPP/IBD	5/12-5/18	42%	41%	7%	Bush +1
Newsweek	5/13-5/14	42%	43%	5%	Kerry +1
Democracy Corps (D)	5/10-5/13	45%	46%	6%	Kerry +1
Zogby	5/10-5/13	42%	47%	3%	Kerry +5
CNN/Time	5/12-5/13	44%	49%	6%	Kerry +5
CNN/Gallup/USAT	5/7-5/9	47%	45%	5%	Bush +2
Pew Research	5/3-5/9	43%	46%	6%	Kerry +3
Ayres McHenry (R)	5/3-5/6	45%	41%	5%	Bush +4