The power of incumbency: How Trump is using the Oval Office to win reelection

Trump fans are hoping for a replay of the 2016 shocker, with the president running up an Electoral College win in spite of worrisome polls. They could prove correct for this reason: the enormous power of incumbency, a force that today’s pundits tend to minimize. A power that, according to Don Luskin of Trend Macrolytics, grants an incumbent president 81 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win reelection...

Luskin’s TrendMacrolytics election model predicted Trump’s victory in 2016, and, applied retroactively, has correctly called every election since 1952. The purely quantitative model uses no polling data but instead relies on political and economic variables.   

Commenting on the 1.4 million jobs gained in August, Luskin wrote, “This datapoint gives Trump 53 additional electoral college votes in our quantitative election model, which now forecasts he will win by a margin of 355.”