Quote:
Originally Posted by JPhillips
I was reading a bit of a paper recently that showed the economy as the main predictor of whether or not the incumbent wins from President to Governor. Other things matter around the margin, but it really is the economy, stupid.
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Krugman referenced this in his latest NYT column:
http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/econpres.pdf
Krugman, quoting Bartels: “Objective economic conditions — not clever television ads, debate performances, or the other ephemera of day-to-day campaigning — are the single most important influence upon an incumbent president’s prospects for re-election.” If the economy is improving strongly in the months before an election, incumbents do well; if it’s stagnating or retrogressing, they do badly.