Three political scientists–Seth Hill of Yale, John Sides of George Washington University, and Lynn Vavreck of UCLA–have set up a new election forecasting model, and used it to judge past Presidential elections, as well as the present one.
The factors involved in the predictions are the gross domestic product in the first three quarters of the election year; the President’s public opinion rating in June of the election year; and and whether one of the candidates is the incumbent in the office.
By these standards, Barack Obama, if his popularity rating holds at 48 percent, and even if there is ZERO economic growth, he has a 58.4 percent chance of winning a second term in the White House!
This works if one looks at 12 of the past 16 Presidential elections, and is, therefore, seen as authoritative by many observers.
Using this model, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan had a 97 percent rating; George W. Bush had 76 percent, his dad 64 percent (but affected by Ross Perot’s third party run and Pat Buchanan’s challenge in the primaries), and Jimmy Carter at 34 percent, with everything against him in 1980.
This is just another indication that Mitt Romney has a major challenge overcoming Barack Obama this coming fall!