Talk Elections

I don't think I've heard of the 'Misery Index' before:

Trump will win a 2nd presidential term if this roughly 50-year-old gauge of the economy holds true (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-will-win-a-2nd-presidential-term-if-this-roughly-50-year-old-gauge-of-the-economy-holds-true-2020-02-11)

The ‘Misery Index’ is at a reading of 5.9%

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Well, let's pack it up then.

EDIT: Did Yellowhammer think I was serious or humorous? The world will never know.

Anyone can back-engineer an economic metric that has correctly predicted previous Presidential elections.

Also, chronically low inflation for the last few decades doesn't mean reelection has become more likely for all modern Presidents. The idea that "misery" was supposedly only about average at the time of the 2008 election is completely insane.

Then why did Gore and Clinton lose? Oh wait...

...and how did Reagan get re-elected when the misery index was above average?

Or FDR in 1936 and 1940?

I love these miserable factoids that get dragged out every election. "After this economist tortures data points, he came up with a magic formula that predicts EVERY single election in the past thirty years, aside from all the elections in which it doesn't remotely do that".

Only men named François are capable of winning French presidential elections for the left, but if the right nominates a man called François, he won't even make it to the second round. Coincidence? I think not 🧐

Idea: get someone by the name of Francois Francois to run for president of France and see them win the nominations of both the left and the right together on route to a handsome, magnificent win in the first round.

RIP Flawless Beautiful Macron :(

The question of course is; to what extent will voters give Trump (and other world leaders up for re-election in the next 12 months or so) a pass on the economy due to the pandemic?

I'd suggest a lot of people will give their leaders a break, at least inititially, due to the unique cause of this recession, and only start looking for blood later when the recovery takes a while to materialize. (e.g. I think Justin Trudeau's minority government should be a lot more worried about a 2022 election than a spring 2021 one). Whether that's enough to save Trump's bacon is another story, but at minimum I'd suggest he'll do a lot better than what we'd expect for an incumbent president in a "normal" double digit unemployment election.

might be time for Republicans to start getting more worried about Texas

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As CNN pointed out that the gap will close, but it's still a 278 map

Well, Donald Trump won re-election, but only in his own mind and within his cult. The economic indicators cannot hide the bungled response to COVID-19, his endorsement of police brutality (as if that makes police work more effective), tear-gassing protesters so that he could make that infamous photo-op holding a Bible that he neither reads nor heeds (he does little reading) in front of a church that he does not attend. Then there is one scandal after another. Multitudes thought in 2020 that Donald Trump was a mistake as an electoral choice that didn't seem so dreadful in 2016.

Trump did better than expected, but he still ended up with too few popular votes to win 270 electoral votes.   

The Misery Index was right this time

any indicator is just an indicator. Its not written down on any stone that it must be absolute