What Economic Forecasts of Trump’s Re-Election Are Missing
Models that point to his victory fail to account for regional variations in the economy.
Are those storm clouds?
Photographer: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFPElection forecasts that use economic conditions rather than polls of voters suggest that President Donald Trump’s re-election chances are much higher than his abysmal approval rating suggests. Take them with a grain of salt. The U.S. economy is steady overall, but conditions in several battleground states continue to deteriorate — and so will Trump’s chances if those trends persist.
The underlying premise of these models is that the economy matters a lot more, and candidates a lot less, than most people think. That’s probably correct. Trump was unpopular with much of the electorate in 2016, and virtually all conventional polls predicted Hillary Clinton would win. By contrast, economy-centric models predicted a Republican victory based on a mini-recession in 2015.