It really is the economy, stupid

After every presidential election, there is hand-wringing and pronouncements about how everything has changed and the party that lost has to reinvent itself. It’s BS.

About 30 years ago I read an article that said that the public’s view of the economy was by far the best predictor of presidential election outcomes. For 110 years, (since Taft) if there was no recession during their term, incumbents won and if there was a recession, they lost.

In the last 32 years, there have only been one or two elections when the public’s perception of the economy did not correctly predict the outcome. One was in 1972 when McGovern dumped his VP nominee, which upset a lot of people. The second was 1992 when the public viewed the economy as OK but punished H.W. Bush for going back on his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge, which was an economic issue.

I, like others, thought Trump’s bad character might be enough for people to reject him, even though the public in general had a negative view of the economy because of the inflation caused by COVID. But once again the public’s view of the economy correctly predicted the outcome. So, let’s all stop talking about the Democrats needing to revamp everything. As James Carville famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Rex Clemmensen

Iowa City