Trump approval ratings thread 1.6

[pbrower2a]

As is my wont, I will try to do some analysis of the connection between Obama approval in 2011 and the election of 2012.



The vote share is what is left once third-party nominees and write-ins (especially such political luminaries as "Mickey Mouse", "Darth Vader", "Santa Claus", and "Jesus Christ") are culled out. Assume at this point that the 2020 election will be essentially a binary choice, with no third-party nominee getting more than 2% of the popular vote nationwide. Assume also that there will be no blatant manipulation of the vote for any purpose (it will be far too risky).

You will notice that Obama outperformed his 2011 approval  level in all states that he won and in his barest loss (North Carolina) Other states in which Obama lost seem to fit no pattern at all. There were two states in which Obama's approval rating was at or below 47% that he ended up winning: Colorado and New Hampshire, both of which Obama won by 6% and 10%, respectively. Maybe the 2011 polls understated Obama's chances in those two states.Otherwise the states that Obama lost seem to drift little away from the line in which the approval number of 2011 is equal to the vote share.  Utah is about 8% below Obama's approval there, but one can explain that with Mitt Romney being a Mormon in the Mormon state.  I have typically held that the favorite son effect is real if the politician is seen positively there.


OK, Obama campaigned in no states in which he expected to lose.  Trump will have to campaign in states in which his approval is under 47%, including in states that he is likely to lose. The only state in which Obama campaigned seriously in which he lost was North Carolina, which he barely won in 2008 and barely lost in 2012.

....the only anomaly that I see with Obama picking up a state in which he had approval under 45% was New Hampshire.The difference between Florida and North Carolina is so slight that the 2012 election could have almost as easily have been Obama winning North Carolina and losing Florida. The model suggests that Obama would have lost New Hampshire, which Obama actual;ly won -- and that Obama had a chance to win Mississippi (except that the state's voting is tribal -- that is racial-- in nature.

Mississippi, God Damn! indeed! If it isn't that white people completely suppress blacks, then the racial divide practically ensures openings for corrupt and incompetent politicians because the majority in their community is of the same race as the corrupt or incompetent politician. Such allows machine politics to ensure that bad practice can continue. The solution for a community with a  corrupt or incompetent black Democrat  mucking things up is to vote for a white Republican reformer. The solution for a community with a corrupt or incompetent white Republican mucking things up is to vote for the black Democratic reformer. What? That corrupt pol controls the public contracts? Are you more interested in high-quality education that allows your children to amount to something and good roads so that you don't have to buy more shock-absorbers and mufflers due to pot-holes ... or do you assume that your group benefits from graft?

(This is a comment on one state, and I think it even-handed. Mississippi usually gets derided in the media for being the worst state in America... it deserves that reputation most of the time. But this isn't the 1960's anymore, and the Klan isn't able to terrorize people as it once did. So what is the excuse?) 

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I want to believe that Gallup number, but they've been so swingy lately that it makes me pause.

On the other hand, it's not out-of-line with what we've seen in other polls.

So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[pbrower2a]

Trend from 2012 to 2016:



Most people who draw conclusions will draw the conclusions that they want.  Mostly it will be that a Plexiglass principle tends to cause states to revert to what they were before 2016 and that trends going one's favored direction will continue going that direction. So for a Democrat, Iowa returns to its norm of being close, but usually favoring Democrats because "it's Iowa" and Texas makes a continued leftward movement due to demographic change (the state having a rapidly-growing Hispanic electorate hostile to Trump and the white population becoming more similar to that of white populations elsewhere becoming better educated. On the other hand, for a Democrat, it wouldn't take much for Minnesota to drift into R territory while Texas reverts to it s senses and accepts that nothing could be better for the common man that government by the super-rich, for the super-rich, and of the super-rich is the best way to create opportunity and prosperity for all.

 (There -- I just anticipated two contradictory arguments, both severely flawed.  These arguments may better describe political realities of 2028 or 2032 than of 2020. Other things will matter in 2020, and I am not discussing those in this post).

[pbrower2a]

The Lichtman Test:

1.    Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.    Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.   Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.    Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.    Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.    Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.    Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.    Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.    Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.    Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.    Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.   Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.   Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Six keys against the Incumbent's Party give an overwhelming chance of failure.

So let's see how it worked out for 2016. In that open-seat election, blue would be for Donald Trump and red for Hillary Clinton:

1.    Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.    Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.   Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.    Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

All four of the first four turn against the Democrats. Obama did not successfully build an electorally-stronger Democratic Party. Sanders was unable to get all of his supporters to go to Clinton in November. Jill Stein of the Green Party won enough left-leaning voters who would have never voted for Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

5.    Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.    Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

OK, Obama's stewardship of the American economy was far steadier than that of Dubya, at the end of whose second term had an economic bubble going bust in a financial panic about as scary as that of 1929. It's the economy, stupid? To a large degree, but one can lose while the economy is going well.

7.    Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

I forget -- over what change in policy did Obama preside? The biggest change was Supreme Court decisions about same-sex marriage and child custody rights. Obama handled it well. Give him some credit. There were no great pieces of legislation in the 114th Congress -- not that there was likely to be much agreement between a President and a hostile Congress. But I will have to hand him LGBT rights.
 
8.    Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.    Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

Such unrest as there was was local and transitory. Obama had the most scandal-free Administration in decades.

10.    Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Benghazi was out of the blue, a minor incident until ISIS found a way to exploit what had been a protest over the release of a very bad movie hostile to Islam -- a movie that practically nobody saw. Republicans successfully made a mountain out of a molehill, and that may have decided the election. Purple due to ambiguity. Perception is everything, and Americans were split along party lines on this.  

11.    Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Nothing really happened, which is the best that could happen with a President facing a hostile Congress, but that is a negative for Obama's Party.

12.   Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.   Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.





It may be a hollow slogan, but Trump was able to appeal to the "basket of deplorable(s)" that Hillary Clinton derided. Trump expressed his love for "low-information voters". Whether one likes or loathes such and finds Trump's message hollow or even abominable, he succeeded in winning the right votes and getting elected.

Seven keys unambiguously  turned for Trump in 2016, and it is amazing, if one looks at all the keys, that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote if not the electoral vote.  

.....Now let's see how that works in 2020. Trump had his chances with both Houses of Congress on his side for two years and plenty of servile media praising him for everything and ridiculing all Democratic opposition.

Red favors the Democrat, and blue the Republican, with purple as ambiguous and green yet to be decided.  

1.    Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.

This key turned decisively against a Trump re-election bid. Gaining seats is tough for any Party that has the incumbent President, but the 2018 midterm election was an unmitigated and unambiguous disaster for Trump and the GOP.

2.    Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.   Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.

William Weld did get nearly 10% support in the New Hampshire Republican Party, demonstrating that some dissent with Trump exists within the Republican Party -- but most states are decided by winner-take-all in the Republican nominating convention. Trump is in a far-stronger position here than he was in 2016 -- almost as strong as Obama in 2012.

4.    Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

Not definitive unless the 2020 election be close enough. Still too early to call, so in green.

5.    Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.    Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

Trump was going to get a bum rap on this because it is very difficult to maintain a seven-year recovery following a meltdown that led to the threat of a second Great Depression. But the Plague of 2020, which by all reasonable accounts this President has handled ineptly, is causing mass unemployment and causing big losses of income to multitudes. Even if America gets out of a recession it will do so too late for Trump.    

7.    Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

Tax cuts for his super-rich supporters and putting reactionaries into court seats? He has not successfully banned abortion, rescinded LGBT rights, put organized prayer back in public schools, established a flat tax, privatized the Interstate Highway system to monopolistic profiteers, closed the Postal Service, or destroyed unions; success in any one of those would count even if they are harmful to more than to whom such would be desirable...  even pathological change would count as major policy.

For example, a new persecution of an ethnic or religious group, no matter how abominable such a deed would be, would count as a positive. This key does not depend upon whether the change is good or evil.

8.    Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

Have you been following the news? Even before that there were sporadic examples of racist violence, including the shootings of two synagogues and some lone-wolf Trump supporter mailing bombs to liberal politicians and celebrities. This has gone from green or purple to red.


9.    Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

This is the most corrupt Administration since at least Warren Gamaliel Harding.

10.    Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

The President was impeached for an effort to get the President of Ukraine to embarrass the President's most likely opponent. Sure he got off -- on a nearly-strict party-line vote that might not look so good in November. Add to this -- while Americans are demonstrating over an incident of inexcusable police brutality, the People's Republic seems to be throttling such freedom as it had recently tolerated in Hong Kong. This may be even more momentous.

11.    Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Possible, but I don't see this yet.

12.   Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

The President is a wreck.

13.   Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Biden charismatic? Not really.

Eight keys have turned against the President. The Lichtman test says that he loses even if I can interpret it to say that he would win decisively in 2016.

[pbrower2a]

Aggregate vote in contested House races statewide in 2018:

This may be different from a Presidential election as House seats often reflect the quality of House candidates and their campaigns.

The cumulative House vote for all states except Florida as a predictor of the Presidency. ME-02 is still undecided, so I am treating it as a tossup was decided for the Democrat, so I must give it a Democratic tilt. Republicans won all three House seats in Nebraska, so I am going with those as percentages.

Draw your conclusions about how much you expect the electorate to expand in in what partisan direction. A larger percentage of eligible voters voted in this midterm election than any in a long time. More people vote in Presidential elections than in midterms, and I would guess that the habit of voting, once started, does not end. Rationales for voting in 2018 but not in 2020 such as "I am voting for my cousin the county sheriff, but I might not vote in 2020" at the personal level are rare.

The new voters are heavily young and Democratic-leaning. The rap on the Millennial Generation is that they have not been voting. That is probably at an end.

I'm going to give a wild guess that the District of Columbia votes strongly against Trump.

Quote from: ElectionsGuy on November 11, 2018, 01:12:24 am

Alabama

Republican: 972,927 (58.8%) (1 uncontested race)
Democrats: 675,269 (40.8%)

Alaska

Republican: 128,516 (53.7%)
Democrats: 109,615 (45.8%)

Arizona

Democrats: 999,328 (49.8%)
Republicans: 989,802 (49.3%) (1 uncontested race)

Arkansas

Republicans: 553,536 (62.6%)
Democrats: 310,572 (35.1%)

California

Democrats: 5,041,566 (63.7%) (1 race with no candidate)
Republicans: 2,747,904 (34.7%) (8 races with no candidate)

Colorado

Democrats: 1,252,603 (52.4%)
Republicans: 1,050,938 (44.0%)

Connecticut

Democrats: 811,194 (61.0%)
Republicans: 508,669 (38.3%)

Delaware

Democrats: 227,353 (64.5%)
Republicans: 125,384 (35.5%)

(Florida -- votes are still being found and discovered, so no count. I am treating it as a tossup).

Georgia

Republicans: 1,981,713 (52.4%) (1 uncontested race)
Democrats: 1,802,475 (47.6%) (1 uncontested race)

Hawaii

Democrats: 287,735 (75.3%)
Republicans: 87,296 (22.8%)

Idaho

Republicans: 366,054 (62.0%)
Democrats: 204,020 (34.6%)

Illinois

Democrats: 2,651,012 (60.4%)
Republicans: 1,714,804 (39.1%)

Indiana

Republicans: 1,178,371 (56.6%)
Democrats: 897,632 (43.1%)

Iowa

Democrats: 656,986 (50.4%)
Republicans: 607,827 (46.6%)

Kansas

Republicans: 549,563 (53.9%)
Democrats: 447,134 (43.9%)

Kentucky

Republicans: 935,565 (59.6%)
Democrats: 613,070 (39.0%)

Louisiana

Republicans: 835,603 (57.2%) (1 uncontested race)
Democrats: 553,008 (37.9%)

Maine

Democrats: 328,409 (52.7%)
Republicans: 241,180 (38.7%)

Maryland

Democrats: 1,414,473 (64.9%)
Republicans: 717,945 (32.9%)

Massachusetts

Democrats: 1,529,641 (74.9%)
Republicans: 486,192 (23.8%) (4 uncontested races)

Michigan

Democrats: 2,108,119 (52.0%)
Republicans: 1,826,335 (45.1%) (1 uncontested race)

Minnesota

Democrats: 1,420,669 (55.2%)
Republicans: 1,125,569 (43.7%)

Mississippi

Republicans: 444,092 (50.6%) (1 uncontested race)
Democrats: 369,782 (42.1%)

Missouri

Republicans: 1,318,481 (55.1%)
Democrats: 1,016,096 (42.5%)

Montana

Republicans: 251,611 (51.1%)
Democrats: 227,036 (46.1%)

Nebraska

Republicans: 424,682 (62.5%)
Democrats: 255,053 (37.5%)

Nevada

Democrats: 491,004 (51.1%)
Republicans: 439,401 (45.8%)

New Hampshire

Democrats: 310,320 (54.4%)
Republicans: 249,714 (43.8%)

New Jersey

Democrats: 1,731,037 (59.6%)
Republicans: 1,139,101 (39.2%)

New Mexico

Democrats: 398,753 (58.2%)
Republicans: 262,138 (38.3%)

New York

Democrats: 3,664,970 (66.6%)
Republicans: 1,751,620 (31.8%) (6 uncontested races)

North Carolina

Republicans: 1,830,219 (50.5%)
Democrats: 1,748,018 (48.2%) (1 uncontested race)

North Dakota

Republicans: 192,733 (60.3%)
Democrats: 113,891 (35.6%)

Ohio

Republicans: 2,245,403 (52.3%)
Democrats: 2,019,120 (47.0%)

Oklahoma

Republicans: 730,531 (62.0%)
Democrats: 428,452 (36.3%)

Oregon

Democrats: 1,034,344 (57.4%)
Republicans: 686,952 (38.1%)

Pennsylvania

Democrats: 2,669,469 (54.9%)
Republicans: 2,179,246 (44.8%) (1 uncontested race)

Rhode Island

Democrats: 239,694 (65.0%)
Republicans: 128,831 (35.0%)

South Carolina

Republicans: 927,504 (54.3%)
Democrats: 757,499 (44.3%)

South Dakota

Republicans: 202,673 (60.3%)
Democrats: 121,002 (36.0%)

Tennessee

Republicans: 1,276,040 (59.2%)
Democrats: 843,658 (39.2%)

Texas

Republicans: 4,104,555 (50.4%) (4 uncontested races)
Democrats: 3,824,300 (47.0%)

Utah

Republicans: 510,244 (58.7%)
Democrats: 307,151 (35.4%)

Vermont

Democrats: 188,547 (69.2%)
Republicans: 70,705 (26.0%)

Virginia

Democrats: 1,864,483 (56.3%)
Republicans: 1,407,791 (42.5%) (1 uncontested race)

Washington

Democrats: 1,734,775 (62.8%)
Republicans: 947,374 (34.3%) (2 races with no candidate)

West Virginia

Republicans: 335,791 (58.4%)
Democrats: 232,856 (40.5%)

Wisconsin

Democrats: 1,358,156 (53.1%)
Republicans: 1,171,456 (45.8%) (1 uncontested race)

Wyoming

Republicans: 127,882 (63.7%)
Democrats: 59,929 (29.8%)

Trump edge:

dark blue 10% or more (really dark for 40% or more --  Nebraska's third Congressional district)
middle blue 5-9%
pale blue under 5%
effective tie (1% either way, both approval and disapproval under 50%)
pink under 5%, but disapproval 50% or higher or at least 1%
red 5-10%
dark red 10% or more (really dark for 40% or more -- District of Columbia and Massachusetts)

Maine 1 is in the southwestern part of the state and Maine 2 is all else.
Nebraska districts are shown 1, 2, and 3 left to right even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 left to right (west to east).

The voting advantage for Democrats in the House in November 2016 suggest 296 electoral votes for the Democrat, with 278 outside the margin of error (Iowa is barely within the margin of error, and Arizona offers a razor-thin, insignificant advantage for Democrats. Georgia and North Carolina are just inside the margin of error, too. Florida is really ambiguous. This antedates any 2020 polls already relevant.

[pbrower2a]

In case anyone is interested in predicting when the Presidential winner will be called by time on the evening, then here is how the states closed their polls in 2016. I know of no changes except that some states may be going to mail-in voting exclusively due to COVID-19. Nobody wants polling places to be points of major infections -- except perhaps for the Grim Reaper.

 

I have nothing on mail-in voting new to this year.

[pbrower2a]

It will be close -- or it won't.

The 'average' win for a President is about 62% of the electoral vote, which is about what Obama did in 2012.

You might expect electoral results to cluster around a mean in the area of 60% of the electoral vote, but such does not happen very often. Since 1900 the results have either been 65% or more or 57% or less in all but one Presidential election. Obama had about the most average win either for his initial election or a re-election, but his is the only one in between.  In 2012 I predicted that Obama would lose Florida because such would put him at a more reasonable 303 electoral votes... close to JFK in 1960.

Here's how I see it. If a Presidential nominee sees himself projecting to lose 280-258, he rarely panics. He presses in states where he is just a bit behind and tries to solidify bare leads where he thinks he is winning. He can broaden the map without putting too much at risk. 310-228? He needs to be more daring. 330-228? At this point it is panic time.  The candidate behind must take desperate measures just to see himself in the fray.  He might have to put some sure states at risk to pick up something on his fringe. One of two things happens: the candidate behind actually makes things close -- or fails to get what he wants, but loses what might have been a state supposedly in the bag. Thus 330-228 goes quickly to 370-288 or 290-248. That might describe Truman in 1948, whom all the 'smart people of the time' thought was sure to lose.  

And what he is losing 370-158 or worse? He's already composing his concession speech so that he can remain relevant and maintain some dignity.

From the one-man play Give 'Em Hell, Harry (referring to a President who shares the first four letters of his last name with the current one -- coincidence and nothing more)

Congratulations, Tom Dewey
You won by a landslide today
Through thick and through thin
We knew you would win
'Cause who'd ever vote to let
Truman stay in!
Congratulations, Tom Dewey!
Your Republican dreams have come true!
Here's a victory roar
For President number Thirty-Four
The White House is waiting... for You

(riff to Hail to the Chief)

In effect, the zone between 310 and 360 electoral votes is highly unstable.

And, no, I am not predicting that Donald Trump (who really has given Democrats Hell while President) will get to mockingly show a copy of the Chicago Tribune that reads "Biden Wins" and get to mock  a Biden victory song like this:

Congratulations, Joe Biden!
You won by a landslide today
Through thick and through thin
We knew you would win
'Cause who'd ever vote to keep
Trump staying in!
Congratulations, Joe Biden
Democratic dreams have come true!
You mastered the tricks
to be number Forty-Six
The White House is waiting... for You

(riff to Hail to the Chief)

[pbrower2a]

One late addition:



https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo

[pbrower2a]

Old, but relevant .

Note well that an incumbent can win despite having support well short of 50% before the political season begins. This applies to Governors and Senators, but to some extent applies to the Presidency. After all, the vast majority of Presidents have been Governors or Senators. This may apply to President Trump as it seemed relevant to Obama. 

From Nate Silver about Governors and Senators seeking re-election:




1) It is extremely common for an incumbent come back to win re-election while having less than 50 percent of the vote in early polls.

2) In comparison to early polls, there is no demonstrable tendency for challengers to pick up a larger share of the undecided vote than incumbents.

3) Incumbents almost always get a larger share of the actual vote than they do in early polls (as do challengers). They do not “get what they get in the tracking”; they almost always get more.

4) However, the incumbent’s vote share in early polls may in fact be a better predictor of the final margin in the race than the opponent’s vote share. That is, it may be proper to focus more on the incumbent’s number than the opponent’s when evaluating such a poll — even though it is extremely improper to assume that the incumbent will not pick up any additional percentage of the vote.

This analysis focuses only on early polls: those conducted between January and June of an incumbent’s election year. I do not attempt to evaluate such claims with respect to late polls, such as those conducted in the weeks immediately preceding an election. It is late polls which are traditionally the subject of the so-called “incumbent rule“, which is the idea that voters who remain undecided late in the race tend to break toward the challenger at the ballot booth. (Note, however, the evidence for the late version of the incumbent rule is also mixed.)

For my study, I looked at all gubernatorial and Senate contests in the 2006, 2008 and 2009 election cycles in which (i) one of the candidates was an incumbent; (ii) there was at least one poll in the race conducted between January and June of the election year, as listed at Pollster.com, and (iii) the two major-party candidates collectively accounted for at least 90 percent of the vote in November. A total of 63 contests passed these screens and were included. Although the third criterion, which disposes of races in which there was a significant third-party vote, is not ideal in certain ways, it eliminates only 4 races and the conclusions here would not substantially change if they were included.

For the analysis, I took a simple average of all early polls as included in the Pollster.com database. In accordance with Pollster.com’s practice, this includes partisan polls and multiple polls conducted by the same pollster. In the vast majority of races, at least two polls were available.

The analysis is summarized in the graph below. Along the horizontal axis, we have the average vote share that the incumbent candidate received in early polls; along the vertical, his actual share of the vote in the November election. The circle denoting each race is filled-in in the event of elections that the incumbent won, and blank in elections that he lost.



There are several noteworthy features of this graph:

1) It is quite common for an incumbent to be polling at under 50 percent in the early polling average; this was true, in fact, of almost half of the races (30 of the 63). An outright majority of incumbents, meanwhile, had at least one early poll in which they were at under 50 percent of the vote.

2) There are lots of races in the top left-hand quadrant of the graph: these are cases in which the incumbent polled at under 50 percent in the early polling average, but wound up with more than 50 percent of the vote in November. In fact, of the 30 races in which the incumbent had less than 50 percent of the vote in the early polls, he wound up with more than 50 percent of the vote 18 times — a clear majority. In addition, there was one case in which an incumbent polling at under 50 percent wound up with less than 50 percent of the November vote, but won anyway after a small third-party vote was factored in. Overall, 19 of the 30 incumbents to have less than 50 percent of the vote in the early polling average in fact won their election.

3) 5 of the 15 incumbents to have under 45 percent of the vote in early polls also won their elections. These were Bob Menendez (38.9 percent), Tim Palwenty (42.0 percent), Don Carcieri (42.3 percent), Jennifer Granholm (43.4 percent) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (44.3 percent), all in 2006.

3b) If we instead look at those cases within three points of Ted Strickland’s 44 percent, when the incumbent had between 41 and 47 percent of the vote in early polls, he won on 11 of 17 occasions (65 percent of the time).

4) Almost all of the data points are above the red diagonal line, meaning that the incumbent finished with a larger share of the vote than he had in early polls. This was true on 58 of 63 occasions.

4b) On average, the incumbent added 6.4 percent to his voting total between the early polling average and the election, whereas the challenger added 4.5 percent. Looked at differently, the incumbent actually picked up the majority — 59 percent — of the undecided vote vis-a-vis early polls.

4c) The above trend seems quite linear; regardless of the incumbent’s initial standing in the early polls, he picked up an average of 6-7 points by the election, although with a significant amount of variance.

5) The following corollary of Moran’s hypothesis is almost always true: if an incumbent has 50 percent or more of the vote in early polls, he will win re-election. This was true on 32 of 33 occasions; the lone exception was George Allen in Virginia, who had 51.5 percent of the vote in early polls in 2006 but lost re-election by less than a full point (after running a terrible campaign). It appears that once a voter is willing to express a preference for an incumbent candidate to a pollster, they rarely (although not never) change their minds and vote for the challenger instead.

*-*

Finally, although this is not apparent from the graph itself, it does appear to be the case that the incumbent’s share of the vote is a better predictor of the final voting margin than the challenger’s share. The correlation between the incumbent’s vote share in early polls and the final voting margin is .85; the correlation between the challenger’s vote share and the final margin has a smaller magnitude, at (negative) .80. Interestingly, the correlation between the margin in early polls and the final margin is also just .85 — no better than that obtained from looking at the incumbent’s vote share alone. This may suggest that the opponent’s vote share provides little additional informational value once the incumbent’s vote share is known. As I hope I’ve made clear, however, this does not mean that incumbents “get what they get in the tracking”; they almost always add to their number. It is probably OK to focus on an incumbent’s vote share in early polls while downplaying the challenger’s number, but if you do, you need to add 6-7 percent to it to have the most accurate prediction of his likely performance in November. In Strickland’s case, for instance, polling at 44 percent in the early polls would predict a final vote share of 50-51 percent.

A table of all races included in the analysis follows below.





Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/myth-of-incumbent-50-rule/

[pbrower2a]

OK... I know, I know. You may be saying that all sorts of things can happen in an election. Waves can seem to overpower individual politicians. True -- but wave elections usually have portents in low early support for incumbents of one party or another -- and many at once. Efforts by special-interest groups start by weakening incumbents' chances and by ensuring that open seats largely go toward the politicians that those special interests want elected. Incumbents on the wrong side of the wave often go from seeming strong to non-experts to having weaknesses to being doomed. Just think of Russ Finegold in Wisconsin in 2010. A liberal may hold Senator Ron Johnson in contempt as a lesser light of the Senate, but he well serves his backers -- so he gets lavish campaign funds in 2010 and 2016, and wins.

Fund-raising matters greatly, and that is a big part of electioneering. Politicians not good at fund-raising  go down to defeat. The easiest way to get lavish fund-raising is to appeal to special interests -- people who want regulatory relief, favorable treatment in tax laws, windfalls from government policies... maybe the people who can promise these things are scum to many of us, but they are angels to the money-handlers.

Obviously that is not the whole story.   Politicians can thoroughly muck up, as when George Allen, who once seemed a leading prospect with the Republican Party, had his "m----a" moment. Then he defended it and it proved indefensible.

If you are wondering about scandals... scandals don't appear as bolts out of the blue. Political scandals by elected officials about which most of us have no idea seem to be well known by political journalists. Political journalists may recognize pols who have strong prospects of advancement (let us say Barack Obama) and those that have big problems (Rod Blagojevich). How politicians get perceptions from the layman often come from political journalists who know well enough to not cheer-lead for those who have a damaging scandal. Those pols typically are less than ebullient and much more secretive than the others, and their support is usually weak when the scandal erupts. Political journalists knew all the time. Just think of Tea Party pol Tom Corbett, a Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, who was covering for a scandal involving his state's flagship university and, more specifically, its football program. Corbett could lose in 2014 despite a Republican wave election.

Maybe the politicians at their worst get away with stuff that they should not get away with -- until they don't.

.......

Now what about those politicians who have early support below about 35%? I suspect that most of them retire rather than face the embarrassment of losing 60-40 or the like. Perhaps they lose primary elections and lose all relevance

[pbrower2a]

... here are the margins in the tipping point states going back to 1832:

Nail-biters = <2%
Close margins = 2-5%
Comfortable margins = 5-10%
Landslides = >10%

Nail-biters
1844 (NY 1.05)
1876 (CO state legislature/SC 0.49) ↑
1880 (NY 1.91)
1884 (NY 0.1)
1888 (NY 1.09)
1916 (CA 0.38) ↑
1948 (IL 0.84) ↑
1960 (MO 0.52)
1976 (WI 1.68) ↑
2000 (FL 0.0092)
2016 (PA/WI; 0.72–0.76) ↑

Close margins
1836* (PA 2.36)
1840 (NJ 3.59)
1848 (PA 3.62)
1856* (TN 4.36) ↑↑
1892 (IL 3.09)
1896 (OH 4.78)
1968 (OH 2.28) ↓
1992 (TN 4.65) ↑
2004 (OH 2.11)
 
Comfortable margins
1852 (NY 5.21)
1860* (NY 7.4) ↑
1864 (IN 7.0) ↑
1868 (NC 6.80)
1872 (OH 7.09) ↑
1900 (IL 8.39)
1908 (KS 9.58)
1940 (PA 6.89)
1944 (NY 5.01)
1980 (IL 7.93)
1988 (MI 7.9)
1996 (PA 9.2)
2008 (IA 9.53)
2012 (CO 5.37) ↓
 
Landslides
1832* (ME/LA; 10.67/23.34)
1904 (NJ 18.63)
1912 (NY 12.6)
1920 (RI 31.19)
1924 (NE 17.51)
1928 (IL 14.65)
1932 (IA 17.71)
1936 (OH 20.56)
1952 (MI 11.47)
1956 (FL 14.54)
1964 (OH 25.89)
1972 (ME 22.98)
1984 (MI 18.99)

Those marked with asterisks are those in which the winning candidate would have been held short of a majority of the EC, therefore throwing the election to the House.

Those marked with asterisks are categorized by the state which would have thrown the election to the House. Also listed as an alternate is the state which would have delivered the election to the runner-up (Clay, Frémont, Douglas).

I left off 1828 as I don't yet have congressional district-level data for New York and Maine, which is necessary to determine which state (or possibly CD) tipped the election.

Nice work here. In early June it is not easy to predict the style of the election. I can't easily pick what state will be the tipping-point state this time...

[pbrower2a]

Most likely states to be the tipping-point state of 2020 look like Arizona or Wisconsin  unless something really weird goes on. Trump really needs to win both if he is to be re-elected. So if Trump wins or loses both by less than 2%, then it is a nail-biter.

Borderline blow-out for Biden (it is Texas)

Comfortable margin for Biden 340-381

Close margin for Biden (he wins both Arizona and Wisconsin, which means that he is winning one of those states by 2.5%, but others are fairly close: FL, NE-02, NC) Biden 289 to 334  (Really, Obama would have had a close election by most standards in 2012 had he lost Florida)

Nail-biter either way (white) Biden 268/Trump 270 to Biden 289/Trump 249

Close margin for Trump  Trump 274 to 306
Comfortable margin for Trump 315 to 353

Not since the inauguration of Donald Trump have I seen any indication of a possibility of a Trump landslide. Aside from saying that he might win Oregon or other states that he lost by 10% or more in 2016 have I seen any situation based on approval polls in which such has any semblance of happening.  

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1269980040495861760

The 2020 Presidential election projected to be close until May.

 

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Trump isnt winning on a 15 pt unemployment rate and he has been impeached already.  Biden has maintained 5 to 8 pt leads since COVID 19

[GeorgiaModerate]

Mississippi: PPP, May 27-28, 871 voters

Approve 52
Disapprove 41

[GeorgiaModerate]

Ipsos Core Political Data (weekly), June 8-9, 1114 adults including 931 RV

Adults:

Approve 39 (nc)
Disapprove 57 (+1)

Strongly approve 23 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 43 (+1)

Biden 43 (+1), Trump 35 (nc)


RV:

Approve 42 (+2)
Disapprove 57 (nc)

Strongly approve 25 (+1)
Strongly disapprove 45 (+1)

Biden 46 (-1), Trump 38 (+1)

[emailking]

Who said they were waiting for Gallup...?

Gallup, May 28-June 4, 1034 adults (prior poll May 1-13)

Approve 39 (-10)
Disapprove 57 (+9)

👀

😲

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Everyday Trump doesnt sign the 3T package that the House package has passed that sends out new stimulus checks and Unemployment benefits,  Trump's prospects gets bleaker and bleaker. What a shame, he let's McConnell have his way yet again on another bill, that Trump can sign

[pbrower2a]

Mississippi: PPP, May 27-28, 871 voters

Approve 52
Disapprove 41

Could support for Trump be eroding among white people in the Deep South?

Trump approval 50-54%
Trump approval positive but under 50%
ties are in white
Trump approval negative but disapproval under 50%
Trump disapproval 50-54%
Trump disapproval 55% or higher

[GeorgiaModerate]

In the 538 tracker, Trump is now at a net -14.0 and disapproval of 55.0, levels not reached since Feb. 2019.

[Gass3268]

In the 538 tracker, Trump is now at a net -14.0 and disapproval of 55.0, levels not reached since Feb. 2019.

Yikes, right after the shutdown.

[Badger]

Mississippi: PPP, May 27-28, 871 voters

Approve 52
Disapprove 41

Could support for Trump be eroding among white people in the Deep South?

Trump approval 50-54%
Trump approval positive but under 50%
ties are in white
Trump approval negative but disapproval under 50%
Trump disapproval 50-54%
Trump disapproval 55% or higher

Don't even. These are his core supporters in the ones most likely to actually approve of his pouring gasoline on the whole stoking a race war thing.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Mississippi: PPP, May 27-28, 871 voters

Approve 52
Disapprove 41

Could support for Trump be eroding among white people in the Deep South?

Trump approval 50-54%
Trump approval positive but under 50%
ties are in white
Trump approval negative but disapproval under 50%
Trump disapproval 50-54%
Trump disapproval 55% or higher

Dont mind Badger he thinks IA is safe R and KY Senate is safe R and Polls show McGraft and Greenfield ahead of Ernst and McConnell like I told him already

[GeorgiaModerate]

Øptimus coronavirus tracker (twice weekly), June 2-9, 855 adults including 762 LV

Adults:

Approve 38 (+3)
Disapprove 63 (-2) (adds to 101 due to rounding - it's 37.5/62.5)

Strongly approve 18 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 44 (nc)

Biden 43 (+1), Trump 32 (-1)

GCB: D 39 (+1), R 30 (+2)


LV:

Approve 44 (nc)
Disapprove 56 (nc)

Strongly approve 25 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 45 (-1)

Biden 53 (nc), Trump 42 (nc)

GCB: D 47 (nc), R 39 (+1)

[pbrower2a]

Øptimus coronavirus tracker (twice weekly), June 2-9, 855 adults including 762 LV

Adults:

Approve 38 (+3)
Disapprove 63 (-2) (adds to 101 due to rounding - it's 37.5/62.5)

Strongly approve 18 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 44 (nc)

Biden 43 (+1), Trump 32 (-1)

GCB: D 39 (+1), R 30 (+2)


LV:

Approve 44 (nc)
Disapprove 56 (nc)

Strongly approve 25 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 45 (-1)

Biden 53 (nc), Trump 42 (nc)

GCB: D 47 (nc), R 39 (+1)

I missed the "35"... but 38 is execrable, too.