A Post-Democratic Primary Update to the Bitecofer Model
'As the Democratic primary winds down, with a Biden nomination a delegate-math inevitability even if contests remain on the calendar, it is time for one of the few updates I plan to my forecast, this one, the post-primary update. Of course, this update comes at a time of incredible turmoil, not only in America, but worldwide, as the unprecedented COVID19 pandemic unfolds — bringing the global economy to a halt and forcing much of the world’s population into self-imposed quarantines. In the July 2019 release of this forecast, I said that little could occur that could alter the basic contours of this election cycle: Democrats are fired up in a way they were not in 2016 because of negative partisanship powered by backlash to Trump and thus would increase their turnout significantly and be less likely to defect to third-party candidates.
I also said, “barring a significant shock to the system, Democrats recapture the presidency.” Significant disruptions I identified included an economic recession, but with the market humming along, willing to handicap Trump even on trade wars with China and Europe, and rate cuts keeping the economy around its 2016 metrics in terms of growth and unemployment, a recession seemed unlikely. Now it is all but certain this fall’s general election will take place immersed in a serious one, with some early reports suggesting potential unemployment numbers, at least in the short term, well into the teens.
To be sure, voters will likely see this recession as they saw the first term of Obama’s presidency, in context. No president can do much to avoid a total standstill of the global economy from an unprecedented virus. But Trump’s mismanagement of the underlying pandemic causing the economy to melt down will be judged by voters, and it’s already clear that the president’s missteps in the early days of the pandemic are exacerbating America’s economic woes.
If Trump had political capital to spend heading into this crisis, that would be one thing. But after the Russia investigation was followed in short order by the Ukraine scandal, Trump’s political capital tank is already on empty, with few Americans outside of Republicans capable of trusting him. Trump will be heading into the fall with the dubious distinction of being the most embattled, controversial, and scandal-plagued president to seek reelection in the history of the republic — and that was before this virus emerged to create a massive public health disaster and destroy his strongest claim for reelection: the economy.
But Donald Trump does have one formidable asset to help his reelection prospects: political polarization and hyperpartisanship, which even in the face of a recession and potential fallout from COVID19 management will likely provide him with a steady and reliable base of support, preventing the type of erosion in approval ratings we saw in the second term of George W. Bush’s tenure. Although most Republicans hung with Bush throughout his second term, right-leaning independents had largely abandoned him as early as 2007. Then, when the economy began to implode during the later stages of the 2008 Democratic Party primary and during the summer of 2008, even some Republicans finally began to desert him. The effect of Republican desertion on Bush’s overall approval ratings was profound. His overall job approval numbers collapsed another 10 points, dropping to as low as 28 percent and hitting just 60 percent among Republicans in the waning days of his tenure. Trump’s robust support among Republicans, which has held steady at a 90/10 split throughout it all, allows his overall approval rating to remain in the low 40s — at least theoretically competitive for a second term.
Democrats, no doubt, are hopeful that as spring turns to summer and the scope of the economic damage begins to set in, a similar situation as befell George W. Bush will befall Donald Trump. While that’s not impossible, there have been important changes in mass political behavior over the past decade that suggest that Trump might be able to evade Bush’s fate. My dissertation research finds a sharp change in public opinion starting in 2008-2009 as two events unfold simultaneously — the collapse of the American economy and the election of America’s first black president — findings that are also confirmed by the Pew Research Center’s polarization research. And elections over the past decade have bucked trends of decades past, making candidates whose scandals or behaviors would have once been disqualifying competitive for public office by the virtue of partisanship — candidates such as Roy Moore in Alabama, who lost out on a Senate seat by just over a point despite multiple allegations of child molestation that emerged during his candidacy.
A recession will certainly provide a potent test of the old “fundamentals” models that my research challenges. Make no mistake about it: If “the economy, stupid” still matters, it needs to matter here, and it should put the presidency completely out of grasp for Trump. Along with the state-level analysis presented here, economic fundamentals models under a recession will predict dismal electoral prospects for Trump. I assume these models have elements in them to prevent them from making forecasts akin to the Reagan/Carter map from 1980, which of course we will not see because the electorate of 1980, which was rich in liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, and a Southern realignment hitting its stride is long gone.
Now, the parties are largely ideologically homogenous and partisanship has evolved to become a social identity, an individual’s “ride or die,” which makes the prospect of red states breaking in favor of Biden seem unlikely, especially given the salience of white racial identity in contemporary Republican politics. In an America in which partisans are willing to inflict bodily harm on each other over politics, it seems unlikely that a mere recession, even an intense one, could move them off of their preferred presidential candidate in the ways it did prior to the polarized era, when the economic-fundamentals models, like the dinosaurs once did, ruled the Earth.'>>>
https://www.niskanencenter.org/bitecofer-post-primary-update/
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Last time I heard her spesk, she was not hesitant. Now she sounds all squishy. Sounds like she flipped and is now "bullish" for Trump. It bums me out. Wish she'd say, yes or no.
