Posted on 10/16/2012 8:07:46 AM PDT by Mikey_1962
The forecast of the 2012 presidential election by Michael Berry and Kenneth Bicker, political science professors at the University of Colorado, that was released in August has been updated with more current economic information, and the result is the same: a Romney win as the economy continues to falter.
It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency, and Berry and Bicker are projecting that Governor Mitt Romney will win 330 of the 538 votes up for grabs in November, while President Obama will receive just 208, down from the 213 they predicted in August.
It’s the economy. The model developed by the two professors has an uncanny track record, correctly predicting each presidential election since 1980, often with startling accuracy. In their paper originally published in August by the American Political Science Association [APSA] along with 12 other studies, it differed in its predictive “model” by looking at two essential pieces of the economic puzzle: changes in real per capita income — that is, net, after-tax, spendable income — and unemployment rates. But their model doesn't just rely on the national numbers provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has been heavily criticized recently for its inexplicable drop in the unemployment rate while real jobs in the economy aren't even reaching maintenance levels. It relies also on state-by-state analyses of those same factors, which appear to be more reliable. As the professors note:
In contrast to these other Electoral College models [published by the APSA], our model includes measures of change in real per capita income, as well as national and state unemployment figures.
Accounting for both changes in personal income and unemployment provides a more robust approximation of state economic well-being and, thus, serves to model the impact of retrospective evaluations of the incumbent party's stewardship of the economy…
The data incorporated in our model are regularly released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in the US Department of Commerce and the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US Department of Labor. This gives us high-quality, predictably available data to use as the feedstock for our model.
This is how politically correct political science professors cover themselves: just in case the national data get a little dicey, the numbers from the states are more predictive:
The heart of our forecast centers on the third set of independent variables. We use two basic measures of economic conditions: unemployment levels and change in real income per capita. Unemployment is measured in two capacities. First is the national unemployment rate. The second is the corresponding unemployment rate in each state…
Our third measure of economic well-being taps the extent to which people have more or less real disposable income at their discretion during the current incumbent's presidential term. The measure included in our model is the percentage change in each state in real per capita non-farm income from the fourth quarter of the prior presidential election year to the first quarter of the current election year.
The unstated but important underlying assumption by the professors is almost an iron law of politics: People will vote their pocketbooks. People are hurting, and that’s hurting Obama:
Putting these pieces together, clearly President Obama is in electoral trouble. To be sure, he enjoys some advantages. First, Obama's successful campaign in 2008 gives him a substantial leg up. He can lose some states that he carried four years ago without losing the election. Second, a prominent second-term incumbency advantage should prove advantageous. Still, the big issue is the fragile economy. With an unemployment rate in excess of 8%, Obama is about two-and-a-half points beyond the break-even point for a Democrat running as the in-party candidate…
The states we predict President Obama will carry include a substantially reduced set than those he carried in 2008. This is supported by the fact that no states won by McCain are predicted to flip to Obama.
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. Three other states that might be viewed as swing states — Michigan, New Mexico, and Nevada — are predicted to stay in Obama's column. Our forecast is that the president will receive 208 Electoral College votes, putting him well short of the 270 needed to win reelection.
The economy is having an impact on other presidential predictions, moving the election towards Romney as well. USA Today said on Sunday that Obama’s perceived lead in Electoral College votes, 265 to 191 for Romney, as recently as two weeks ago has now dropped precipitously to just 201 to 191 currently, with 11 states considered to be “toss-ups” with 146 votes at stake there.
Scott Rasmussen noted that as of Monday, “Romney has had a slight lead or been tied on nine of the past 10 days. Before that, Obama had been ahead or tied for 16 consecutive days.” Rasmussen is still calling it a close race, but “in a close race, even a small change can have a big impact.”
Intrade, the online betting site, has also seen a precipitous drop in support for Obama, moving from an apparently invincible high approaching 80 percent to just over 60 percent as of this writing.
If the college professors are right, and voters vote their pocketbooks, and the data they are using to make their predictions are anywhere close to being accurate, Romney should win in November. As the economy continues its decline, so do Obama’s chances at reelection. Perhaps that’s why he’s looking at buying a retirement mansion in Hawaii.
Hmmm. I wonder if the model accounts for voter fraud and Chicago thug activities?
Guess the Labor Dept. flunkies will have to convince us that unemployment fell to 5.5% by the end of this month. Of course, they’ll have to drop another 10 million people out of the workforce to get that number, but it’s been done before.
Exactly. We can believe the polls if we want to, but they must not govern our actions.
IMHO it is crawl-over-broken-glass time in order to overcome the theft margin.
EVERY VOTE COUNTS!
If Obama can get the Labor Participation Rate in the 40’s he could get negative unemployment.
Amen....
I have a fairly safe prediction. No matter what happens at the debate tonight, the MSM will immediately hail Obama’s tremendous comeback performance and attempt to demonize Romney for being untruthful, vague and/or rude.
After the last debate, the MSM and the rest of the left wing could not stifle their shock, horror and deep disappointment at Obama. It was like a gag reflex. They simply could not hold back their overpowering urge to vomit.
Now they have had time to reflect and have become even more shocked and horrified to see Romney shoot ahead of Obama in all of the polls. The MSM has way too much emotionally and financially invested in Obama to simply cut him loose now. They will do whatever it takes from now until the election to prop Obama back up.
If they do manage to prop Obama up long enough to get him re-elected, then they will start tearing into him like a pack of wild dogs. The honeymoon is definitely over.
The thing is Romney really isn’t a rude or mean person. He’s a nice man and is very smart and articulate. I don’t see him saying anything cray cray. Obama is the one who acts like he can’t stand that he has to even be asked to answer questions.
He’s not charming or nice at all, and I think all the white guilt has lifted and most are not at all swayed by Obama. The thrill is gone.
My best guess: Romney wins 280-258. He gets OH, FL, VA, NC, CO and NH plus 1 vote in ME. Obama gets NV, MI, PA, NM, WI and IA.
I’d love it to be a larger victory but anything over 270 will be a blessing.
.............We use two basic measures of economic conditions: unemployment levels and change in real income per capita. Unemployment is measured in two capacities. First is the national unemployment rate. The second is the corresponding unemployment rate in each state…
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It sounds like they are using the bogus government unemployment rate of 7.8% - rather than the
U6 rate that counts the long term unemployed.
That higher real unemployment rate could cause many more accurate predictions!
From your keyboard to God’s ears.
Wow, this is the second time they have included Minnesota in Romney’s column. I do hope they are right. It is discouraging to MN conservatives to always have our EV’s go to the Democrat candidate.
I wish rhe R/R campaign would run some TV ads in the Twin Cities market. It is only about 15 miles to the Wisconsin border, and they could help raise the WI vote plus incentivize the MN vote at the same time.
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