Rate the fundamentals for election cycles an incumbent won from most to least favorable
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  Rate the fundamentals for election cycles an incumbent won from most to least favorable
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dw93
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« on: September 18, 2021, 02:07:43 PM »

Based on Old School Republican's thread about losing incumbents, rank the fundamentals for winning incumbents. For my ranking, I'm only using Post War Incumbents, but feel free to add earlier elections for your ranking if you wish. Here's mine:

Based on the conditions of a year prior:

1. 1964
2. 1956
3. 1972
4. 2004
5. 1984
6. 1996
7. 2012
8. 1948

Based on the conditions six months prior to the election:

1. 1964
2. 1956
3. 1972
4. 1984
5. 1996
6 (tie). 2004
6 (tie). 2012
8. 1948

Based on how things looked on election day:

1. 1964
2. 1956
3 (tie). 1972
3 (tie). 1984
4. 1996
6. 2012
7. 2004
8. 1948

My thoughts on each election:

1948: The greatest Presidential election upset in the last century, if not all of US history, even greater than 2016. No one believed Truman would win, so much so that polling centers stopped conducting polls, but thanks to Dewey's complacency as well as Truman's strong campaign against a Republican controlled "Do nothing Congress," Truman won and it wasn't that close, and he also produced enough coattails down ticket to put his party back in the Congressional majority. Impressive, despite unfavorable fundamentals leading up to election day itself.

1952: Even if Ike sat 56 out or god forbid died of the heart attack he had a year prior, Nixon or whoever the GOP nominated would've won comfortably, even if not by as large of a margin as Ike himself did against Stevenson. Economic fundamentals and relative stability abroad alone would've carried the GOP.

1964: Whether it was Kennedy being alive and well to run in 1964 or with Johnson, the Democrats were gonna win and win big. Like 56, the fundamentals were just too good and on top of that, the GOP didn't have a candidate to unify both the conservative and moderate factions of the party.

1972: The Democrats were still in shambles nationally after 1968 and anything that weighed Nixon down in 1970 and 71 was no longer an issue by the time of the general election campaign, and the issue that would sink Nixon in a 2nd term wasn't making headline news.

1984: If the conditions of late 1981- early 1983 lingered into 1984, Reagan would've been toast, even against Mondale. They didn't and things got dramatically better through the rest of 1983 and 1984, this along with Mondale running a bad campaign gave Reagan a 49 state landslide.

1996: Thanks to noticeable economic growth by the start of 1996, relative stability abroad, and Newt Gingrich shooting himself and the entire GOP in the foot with the Government shutdowns of 1995 and early 96, Clinton was able to fully recover from his low points of 1993 and 1994 and win a 2nd term comfortably. Having an opponent who was well past his political shelf date like Bob Dole was also helps too.

2004: The fundamentals of 2004 were weird. On the one hand, the economy was out of the "dotcom recession," and homeowner ship was at a historic high, but despite that and  despite the recession being brief and mild, overall economic growth was weak and uneven, thus undercutting the notion that Bush successfully lead the country out of recession. The war in Iraq was still supported by a slight majority of the country at the time, but by the time of the general election campaign it was confirmed that there was no WMD in Iraq and there was also the abu ghraib scandal, making people question and begin to turn against the war. Then there's the question of how much Bush's homophobic campaign against gay marriage impacted the end result. I feel like Bush, if he played his cards right through his first term, could've won decisively, but thanks to the fact that he didn't and thanks to Kerry not being the worst candidate the Democrats could've fielded, the election was a down to the wire election that Bush only narrowly won, and could've just as easily lost.

2012: On paper, an incumbent with unemployment around 8% by election day and weak GDP growth should've lost, even if he inherited an economic catastrophe, and two ongoing wars to boot. However, thanks to some noticeable economic improvement through 2012, the best re election campaign of any incumbent since Truman, an opposition that learned the wrong lessons from the Bush years and drifted too far to the right, and an opponent that was easy to define and one that wore his worst traits as a badge of pride, as well as enough people willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt,  Obama was able to pull off a very respectable victory.
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