A recession would hurt all kinds of Republican candidates — not just Trump

[Virginiá]

New study:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/18/coronavirus-recession-would-hurt-all-kinds-republican-candidates-not-just-trump/

As Michael Tesler wrote here at TMC, political scientists have long found that national economic conditions sway voters’ likelihood of voting for the incumbent president. But effects go beyond that: Voters reward or blame the president’s party in other elections as well.

Using this strategy in a new study, we compare administrative data on county-level economic conditions from 1969 to 2018 with election results for U.S. local, state and federal offices.

Just as the graphs above suggest, we find that over the past five decades, voters hold the president’s party accountable for the economy — at nearly all levels of government. The graph below shows the county-level relationship between changes in wages and changes in Democrats’ average vote shares in presidential, House and Senate elections under a Democratic president (in blue) and a Republican president (in red). Our model accounts for year- and state-specific factors that could affect elections and shows the relative changes in wages and share of the vote.

The results in the graph show the average Democratic vote share across the entire range of economic performance. The president’s party tends to do about 0.15 percent better for every 1 percent improvement in the local economy — and about 0.15 percent worse for every 1 percent decline in the local economy.

Shouldn’t Trump get the benefit of the overall economic growth since 2016? That’s not how it works. Like other political scientists, we find that voters judge politicians based on the last year before they cast their ballots, not over the full four years of a president’s term. This suggests that Trump and Republicans could lose votes for 2020’s economic distress, despite earlier growth.

Seems like an obvious conclusion to draw to me, but not so sure given some posts around here. Recessions are toxic, and if you can't fix it very quickly and noticeably well before election day, a great many people are going to blame you when push comes to shove.

[ProudModerate2]

Interesting.
Thanks for posting it (and hopefully it is true come November).

[Pericles]

Given redistricting is coming right up, if Trump keeps botching the response the Republican Party could still be hurt by it in 2030.

[Bismarck]

People won’t blame Trump though. They will blame the virus. His handling of the crisis will be judged but not the crisis itself.

[Intell]

I can say with confidence that democrats downballot will over perform Biden.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Given redistricting is coming right up, if Trump keeps botching the response the Republican Party could still be hurt by it in 2030.

LOCK THEM UP!

[Hermit For Peace]

People won’t blame Trump though. They will blame the virus. His handling of the crisis will be judged but not the crisis itself.

I don't know if I agree with you. People get blinded by emotions and can't see clearly come voting time. The virus is Trump's.

[T'Chenka]

People won’t blame Trump though. They will blame the virus. His handling of the crisis will be judged but not the crisis itself.

If it is CLEAR AS DAY that Trump could've saved 100,000s of lives but refused to, and Biden and the media make that clear, he's done. He has dug himself a crater with the COVID-19 response and he's digging deeper every day. Maybe when he gets to China he can deport COVID-19 through the hole, back where it cane from.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Recessions are bad for incumbents. That's one rule in politics that is as old as democracy itself.

[Sir Mohamed]

Recessions are bad for incumbents. That's one rule in politics that is as old as democracy itself.

Usually yes. But also depends on whom the public actually blames and how patient voters are. Dems won the 1934 midterms and FDR was reelected in a landslide in 1936 despite the economy not having recovered. They still blamed Hoover and the GOP and saw in FDR someone who does everything in his power to combat the depression. In 2010, voters faulted Obama for the economy not growing fast enough (at least voters that showed up in the polls). In 2012, Obama won reelection despite having relatively high unemployment compared to previous elections with an incumbent seeking reelection.

Trump or any incumbent prez in 2020, doesn't have doomed automatically in November if the public doesn't fault him and thinks he's doing everything possible to turn things around.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Recessions are bad for incumbents. That's one rule in politics that is as old as democracy itself.

Usually yes. But also depends on whom the public actually blames and how patient voters are. Dems won the 1934 midterms and FDR was reelected in a landslide in 1936 despite the economy not having recovered. They still blamed Hoover and the GOP and saw in FDR someone who does everything in his power to combat the depression. In 2010, voters faulted Obama for the economy not growing fast enough (at least voters that showed up in the polls). In 2012, Obama won reelection despite having relatively high unemployment compared to previous elections with an incumbent seeking reelection.

Trump or any incumbent prez in 2020, doesn't have doomed automatically in November if the public doesn't fault him and thinks he's doing everything possible to turn things around.

Even FDR wasn't immune to that rule. When the 1937/38 recession hit, Democrats suffered huge losses.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Yeah, the 1938 midterms were a bloodbath for the Democrats, though the six-year itch likely had something to do with it.  

HOUSE: R+81
SENATE:  R+8
GUBERNATORIAL: R+12

[Landslide Lyndon]

Yeah, the 1938 midterms were a bloodbath for the Democrats, though the six-year itch likely had something to do with it.  

HOUSE: R+81
SENATE:  R+8
GUBERNATORIAL: R+12

It was a triple whammy adding to that how ridiculously overextended Democrats were after four cycles where they enjoyed huge landslides.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

A 2008 year was always in the cards if the wave happened, but we had a 3.5 percent unemployment,  now it looks like its possible now

[Sir Mohamed]

Recessions are bad for incumbents. That's one rule in politics that is as old as democracy itself.

Usually yes. But also depends on whom the public actually blames and how patient voters are. Dems won the 1934 midterms and FDR was reelected in a landslide in 1936 despite the economy not having recovered. They still blamed Hoover and the GOP and saw in FDR someone who does everything in his power to combat the depression. In 2010, voters faulted Obama for the economy not growing fast enough (at least voters that showed up in the polls). In 2012, Obama won reelection despite having relatively high unemployment compared to previous elections with an incumbent seeking reelection.

Trump or any incumbent prez in 2020, doesn't have doomed automatically in November if the public doesn't fault him and thinks he's doing everything possible to turn things around.

Even FDR wasn't immune to that rule. When the 1937/38 recession hit, Democrats suffered huge losses.

Sooner or later, the pendlum always wings back. More interesting is that the GOP came pretty close in the 1942 midterms, in the midst of WWII (Pacific theater for US).

[Tekken_Guy]

People won’t blame Bush though. They will blame Katrina. His handling of the crisis will be judged but not the crisis itself.

See how stupid that sounds?

[Virginiá]

People won’t blame Trump though. They will blame the virus. His handling of the crisis will be judged but not the crisis itself.

That seems to be how it should go, since we are presumably at least somewhat rational, but it's not. Most recessions have explanations that aren't directly the current president's fault, but study after study shows people blame the incumbent president for their own economic pain nonetheless. You don't even really need a study to confirm that, either (yet there are many). Just look at the losses the president's party suffers in elections directly following major recessions. Even FDR and the Democrats got their due in 1938. Eisenhower in 1958. Republicans in 2008. The bigger the decline in jobs/GDP, the bigger the losses.

Also, the study made efforts to separate the cause of the political losses, which is why they looked at the county level. See:

But how can you separate the influence of the economy from everything else?

Of course, many factors affect national elections. For instance, Democratic candidates did poorly in 1980 — but it’s hard to tell how much that was because of the poor economy and how much was because of the Iran hostage crisis. Similarly, Republicans did poorly in 2008 — but how much of that was because of the Great Recession and how much because of the unpopular war in Iraq?

To figure that out, we looked at local variation in the economy within particular states in a given election year. If a particular county’s economy was doing better or worse than its neighbors’ within the same state while other national conditions remain the same — if, say, “Springfield” is in a recession but “Middletown” is thriving — we can see whether people in Springfield and Middletown voted differently in the same year.

Like I said, the rational thing would be that even if Trump is bungling the response to this - certainly from the start - we'd probably be getting a recession no matter what if we had to go into lockdown, so it shouldn't be his fault, but history shows that it won't matter. My interpretation is that people just expect him to fix it, and if he can't, they turn on him and his party.

[Progressive Pessimist]

This is the only silver lining to a recession. I'll say it.

Though I don't know if I have faith in the American populace to be consistent in attributing the economy to Trump and/or his party in the case of a recession as they did when the economy was stable. These last few weeks have been pretty brutal for how I perceive the public, and that was already coming from a pretty negative place.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

We want the economy to succeed and 2008 recession I never wanted that either, as my job was hijacked by that Recession. No one wants this doom and gloom again.

But this is the fault of our dependency on Chinese trade and we need to develop our own products. But sports is so big, coming from China, owners are never gonna break that relationship.  They are suffering now

[Yoda]

People won’t blame Trump though. They will blame the virus. His handling of the crisis will be judged but not the crisis itself.

This....this will be far worse for trump and republicans than if they were judged on the economy.

[MABA 2020]

People won’t blame Bush though. They will blame Katrina. His handling of the crisis will be judged but not the crisis itself.

See how stupid that sounds?

So this election is basically 2004 if Katrina happened a year earlier?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Actually,  the Recession is helping Trump, when there is a slowdown consumers spend less money and conserve. Dems arent gonna have the rallies and dominance of the news they hoped to have during the Summer mnths. Also, there is gonna be a barrage of negative ads, that the Olympics would have negated in the run up to the R convention.  The Dems will have less enthusiasm than they would have, had there not has been a Recession.  The arguement can go both ways

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Recessions are bad for incumbents. That's one rule in politics that is as old as democracy itself.

Except when its not: 1934 and 2002 come to mind. 2002 is of special relevance since although the recession started on his watch, the blame was placed at the feet of 911, not Bush's policies, and Bush received high marks for the War on Terror.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

People won’t blame Bush though. They will blame Katrina. His handling of the crisis will be judged but not the crisis itself.

See how stupid that sounds?

So this election is basically 2004 if Katrina happened a year earlier?

The problem is, does this play out as Katrina or does it play out as a mini-911 (restricted by partisanship)? 2004 did not play out in a recession, it was a weak recovery. 2002 did take place in a recession and it is one of the few midterms where the party in power gained seats. The others being 1934 (Republicans still being blamed for the Depression) and 1998 (Lewinsky impeachment backfiring).

It also has to be considered that we are a balkanized and divided country and right now, while for Democrats this is viewed as Katrina, Republicans view this as 911. A big determining factor will be what the final outcome is, when it ends and how quickly the economy is recovering in this regard, if it is recovering.

If you want to go back further into an era of more intense polarization based on demographics and regions like we have now, you have two examples, 1876 and 1908 where an economic collapse under a Republican President didn't prevent the election of Republican Presidents. And before anyone interjects claiming that 1876 was stolen, it was merely "stolen back" if it was stolen at all.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It also should be remembered that Katrina alone would not have nuked Bush's approval long term. Iraq was what eroded Bush's support over time and Katrina merely played into the general narrative that the administration was incompetent at managing things, but Iraq was a far bigger driver of that sentiment.

Also, Bush had already blew his political capital on social security privatization and that hammered him just prior to Katrina as well.

The dominant issues in the 2006 midterms though were Iraq, corruption and to some extent immigration.