Inside Our 2020 Presidential Election Prediction Model

Our proprietary quantitative presidential election model predicts that Trump will be re-elected by a margin of 294 electoral college votes, assuming economic conditions are the same in November 2020 as they are today. A non-incumbent GOP candidate such as Pence is predicted to win by 214. The predicted margin is robust to some degree of cooling off from today’s very strong economic variables. Historically, when the economy is merely okay, incumbents always win unless their party has held the White House for two terms or more. But a GOP candidate could not survive even a mild recession, because it would come on the heels of today’s very hot economy. Conventional “business cycle” thinking says a recession is long overdue, but a successful conclusion to the US/China trade war could reinvigorate global growth and easily forestall one through the election.