The 2016 Election: Like 1888 but not 1876 or 2000

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrice Barthélémy ◽  
Mathieu Martin ◽  
Ashley Piggins
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Anomalous Behavior ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
The Us ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
House Size

ABSTRACTDonald J. Trump won the 2016 US presidential election with fewer popular votes than Hillary R. Clinton. This is the fourth time this has happened, the others being 1876, 1888, and 2000. In earlier work, we analyzed these elections (and others) and showed how the electoral winner can often depend on the size of the US House of Representatives. This work was inspired by Neubauer and Zeitlin (2003, 721–5) in their paper, “Outcomes of Presidential Elections and the House Size.” A sufficiently larger House would have given electoral victories to the popular vote winner in both 1876 and 2000. An exception is the election of 1888. We show that Trump’s victory in 2016 is like Harrison’s in 1888 and unlike Hayes’s in 1876 and Bush’s in 2000. This article updates our previous work to include the 2016 election. It also draws attention to some of the anomalous behavior that can arise under the Electoral College.

scholarly journals Electoral College bias and the 2020 presidential election

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (45) ◽  
pp. 27940-27944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Erikson ◽  
Karl Sigman ◽  
Linan Yao
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
The Past ◽  
Electoral Vote ◽  
Republican Candidate

Donald Trump’s 2016 win despite failing to carry the popular vote has raised concern that 2020 would also see a mismatch between the winner of the popular vote and the winner of the Electoral College. This paper shows how to forecast the electoral vote in 2020 taking into account the unknown popular vote and the configuration of state voting in 2016. We note that 2016 was a statistical outlier. The potential Electoral College bias was slimmer in the past and not always favoring the Republican candidate. We show that in past presidential elections, difference among states in their presidential voting is solely a function of the states’ most recent presidential voting (plus new shocks); earlier history does not matter. Based on thousands of simulations, our research suggests that the bias in 2020 probably will favor Trump again but to a lesser degree than in 2016. The range of possible outcomes is sufficiently wide, however, to even include some possibility that Joseph Biden could win in the Electoral College while barely losing the popular vote.

Polling will proliferate despite UK 'Brexit' failure

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Market Volatility ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
Communication Methods ◽  
The Eu

Subject 'Brexit' polling. Significance On June 23, the pound swung wildly: final polls on whether the United Kingdom should leave the EU ('Brexit') had shown a 4-percentage-point lead for 'Remain', only for the final result to be the opposite. Pollsters have been criticised for their failure to predict both this result and the 2015 UK general election outcome, even as qualitative analysts have also been criticised for missing the results. Impacts The US presidential election is immune from most polling failures, given its hyper-coverage and the discrete decisions of swing states. US Senate and House of Representatives elections are much more difficult to poll, leading to likely market volatility in early November. Changes in communication methods are sparking debates about how a representative sample of the population can be reached best.

The Keys to the White House

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan J. Lichtman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prediction System ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
President Obama ◽  
White House ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Us Presidential Election

The Keys to the White House are an index-based prediction system that retrospectively account for the popular-vote winners of every US presidential election from 1860 to 1980 and prospectively forecast the winners of every presidential election from 1984 through 2008. The Keys demonstrate that American presidential elections do not turn on events of the campaign, but rather on the performance of the party controlling the White House. The Keys hold important lessons for politics in the United States and worldwide. A preliminary forecast based on the Keys indicates that President Obama is a likely winner in 2012, but also reveals the specific problems at home at abroad that could thwart his re-election.

scholarly journals Fundamentals-Based State-Level Forecasts of the 2020 US Presidential Election

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Nollenberger ◽  
Gina-Maria Unger
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Improve Accuracy ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
Us Presidential Election

Forecasts of US presidential elections have gained considerable attention in recent years. However, as became evident in 2016 with the victory of Donald Trump, most of them consider presidential elections only at the national level, neglecting that these are ultimately decided by the Electoral College. In order to improve accuracy, we believe that forecasts should instead address outcomes at the state-level to determine the eventual Electoral College winner. We develop a political economy model of the incumbent vote share across states based on different short- and long-term predictors, referring up to the end of the second quarter of election years. Testing it against election outcomes since 1980, our model correctly predicts the eventual election winner in 9 out of 10 cases – including 2016 –, with the 2000 election being the exception. For the 2020 election, it expects Trump to lose the Electoral College, as only 6.2 percent of simulated outcomes cross the required threshold of 270 Electoral Votes, with a mean prediction of 106 Electoral Votes.

The Keys to the White House

2012 ◽  
pp. 214-225
Author(s):  
Allan J. Lichtman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prediction System ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
President Obama ◽  
White House ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Us Presidential Election

The Keys to the White House are an index-based prediction system that retrospectively account for the popular-vote winners of every US presidential election from 1860 to 1980 and prospectively forecast the winners of every presidential election from 1984 through 2008. The Keys demonstrate that American presidential elections do not turn on events of the campaign, but rather on the performance of the party controlling the White House. The Keys hold important lessons for politics in the United States and worldwide. A preliminary forecast based on the Keys indicates that President Obama is a likely winner in 2012, but also reveals the specific problems at home at abroad that could thwart his re-election.

scholarly journals Three Bizarre Presidential-Election Scenarios: The Perils of Simplism

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard F. Potthoff
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Statistical Sampling ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
The U.S

The 1968, 2000, and (future) 2024 U.S. presidential elections provide settings for deliberately provocative, offbeat scenarios that might have happened or could happen. Throughout, the Electoral College and plurality voting both receive blame. Scenario 1 exposes a quirk previously unnoticed: Under (albeit special) conditions, certain 1968 Humphrey voters could have made Humphrey rather than Nixon the election victor had they voted strategically for Wallace instead of Humphrey. In Scenario 2, overlooked nonidentifiability of undervotes would have plagued the 2000 Florida recount had the U.S. Supreme Court not halted it, thus raising questions about the foresightfulness of almost everyone involved; but, in addition, Gore missed an opportunity that, through use of proper statistical sampling, could have propelled him to victory. In Scenario 3, National Popular Vote Interstate Compact supporters fail to foresee that even one state, by changing its method for presidential voting, can wreck this innovative and widely promoted compact.

scholarly journals The fragile blue wall: analyzing geographies of the 2020 US presidential election

2021 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
John Agnew ◽  
Michael Shin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Election Polls

US presidential elections are peculiar contests based on mediation by an Electoral College in which votes are aggregated on a state-by-state basis. In 2020, as in 2016, the outcome was decided by a set of states where the two candidates were equally competitive: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Two geographical stories tend to dominate accounts of what happened in 2020. The first story is based on red (Republican) versus blue (Democratic) states, and the second story relies upon rural versus urban biases in support for the two parties. After showing how and where Donald Trump outperformed the expectations of pre-election polls, we consider these two geographical stories both generally, and more specifically, in relation to the crucial swing states. Through an examination of the successes of Joe Biden in Arizona and Georgia, two states long thought of as “red”, and the role of the suburbs and local particularities in producing this result, we conclude that the polarization of the United States into two hostile electorates is exaggerated. 

Forecasting the 2012 Presidential Election with State-Level Economic Indicators

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (04) ◽  
pp. 669-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Berry ◽  
Kenneth N. Bickers
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
State Level ◽  
Forecast Model ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Major Party ◽  
White House ◽  
Forecast Models

Nearly all forecast models of US presidential elections provide estimates of the national two-party vote (Campbell 2008). Each of the nine forecasts published in the 2008 forecasting issue ofPS: Political Science and Politicsmade national popular vote total predictions for the major party candidates, while only one provided an expected result in the Electoral College (Klarner 2008). These national vote models are assumed to be reliable forecasts of who is likely to win the general election. In most cases, this assumption is reasonable. It becomes problematic, however, at precisely the point that forecasts are most interesting: when elections are close. In tight elections, national forecasts can and have produced a “winner” different from the actual winner. Consider the forecasts and ultimate outcome of the 2000 election. Each of the 2000 presidential election forecasts predicted vice president Al Gore to win a majority of the two-party popular vote, which he did, but none correctly predicted governor George W. Bush to assume the presidency (Campbell 2001). Never in US history have White House residents been determined through a national popular vote. Presidential elections are decided through contests in the states and the District of Columbia. The forecast model we developed explicitly models the presidential contest based on factors inherent to these 51 jurisdictions. This modeling approach allows us to make a projection of the Electoral College result, which popular vote estimates cannot.

ELECTION FORECAST: A LOOK BACK AT THE TIME FOR CHANGE MODEL AND THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (01) ◽  
pp. 37-38
Author(s):  
Alan I. Abramowitz
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Change Model ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Major Party ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Forecasting Models ◽  
The Us ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Mitt Romney

The Time for Change Model once again correctly predicted the winner of the US presidential election. In late August, before the Republican and Democratic national conventions, the model predicted that President Obama would win 50.6% of the major party vote to 49.4% for his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. When all the votes are counted, it now appears that Obama will end up with approximately 51.8% of the vote, making the Time for Change Model one of the nation's most accurate statistical forecasting models. Despite the fact that this prediction was made more than two months before Election Day, the Time for Change forecast was more accurate than the results of many national polls conducted immediately before the election including the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls both of which predicted a popular vote win for Mitt Romney.

Obama's Reelection Prospects under “Bread and Peace” Voting in the 2012 US Presidential Election

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (04) ◽  
pp. 635-639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Hibbs
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Weighted Average ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Average Growth ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Objectively Measured ◽  
Foreign Wars

According to the Bread and Peace Model postwar, American presidential elections should be interpreted as a sequence of referendums on the incumbent party's record during its four-year mandate period. In fact postwar aggregate votes for president are well explained by just two objectively measured fundamental determinants: (1) weighted-average growth of per capita real disposable personal income over the term, and (2) cumulative US military fatalities due to unprovoked, hostile deployments of American armed forces in foreign wars. No other outside variable systematically affects postwar aggregate votes for president.

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