Forecasting the Presidential Vote with Leading Economic Indicators and Polls

• In Event: The 2020 Election: Forecasts from Three Classic Models

Abstract

On election eve the presidential vote can be seen fairly clearly from trial-heat polls. Earlier in the election year, the polls offer much less information about what will happen on Election Day. They capture preferences to the moment and do not anticipate how preferences will evolve in the future. The standing of the sitting president is important and the economy too, but both can change as the election cycle unfolds. Our solution to the problem of early forecasting has been to turn to The Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators (LEI). The growth in these indicators through the spring of the election year—quarter 13 of the election cycle—is a strong predictor of the vote. This is for two reasons: (1) it provides a summary of the state of the economy leading up to the election year; and (2) it gives advance indication of changes in the economy (and presidential approval) during the election year. We use the quarter 13 measure of cumulated LEI growth in conjunction with current trial-heat polls to predict the vote during the election year. The model has worked well in previous elections and in the proposed paper we intend to update the equation including the 2016 election and apply it to the 2020 election. In the course of the analysis, we will consider the association between LEI readings and presidential polls (and approval) across election years to illuminate the degree to which non-economic factors have mattered in the past and the degree to which the 2020 election is exceptional.

Authors

• Robert S. Erikson, Columbia University

• Christopher Wlezien, University of Texas at Austin