Analysts say President Donald Trump is on track for a 2020 landslide victory. Their forecasts are based on economic models that have successfully predicted the right presidential victors in the past.
“The economy is just so damn strong right now and by all historic precedent the incumbent should run away with it,” Luskin told the news website. “I just don’t see how the blue wall could resist all that.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s overall job approval numbers were recorded at 43 percent, roughly the same numbers as Gallop’s previous February poll.
Similarly, Yale economist and election forecaster Ray Fair also predicted Trump would win re-election on the basis of a flourishing economy and the incumbency advantage. He also predicted Trump would win in 2016 but missed on the president’s share of the popular vote, according to the news website.
“Even if you have a mediocre but not great economy—and that’s more or less consensus for between now and the election—that has a Trump victory and by a not-trivial margin,” Fair told Politico. He predicted that Trump would receive 54 percent of the popular vote compared to 46 percent for Democrats.
The analysts warn, however, that their data only takes into account economic variables and historical trends but ignores factors like election polls and personal characteristics of candidates—which are other important considerations. For example, TrendMacrolytics’s model looks at key economic data such as gross domestic product growth, tax burden, disposable income, inflation, payrolls, and gas prices in order to predict election outcomes.
Analysts also warn that a lot could change from now until election day in 2020. They note that changes in the variables like an uptick in the unemployment rate could change how the election would go for Trump.
“The model’s forecast is likely to be very different on election day, 596 days from [March 18], as all six economic variables fluctuate,” TrendMacrolytics said in their report.
Luskin told Politico that “[the economy] would have to slow a lot to still be not pretty good,” but added that a sharp move in the wrong direction could change how voters would behave.