If you’re a Dem anxious for a Kerry victory and a morale boost, take a look at Chuck Todd’s item in this month’s Washington Monthly about the possibility of a “Kerry landslide.” It’s a fun read.
Todd, who edits the National Journal’s Hotline, notes the obvious: nearly everyone in the political universe believes this year’s race will be incredibly close.
Over the last year, most political TV shows handicapping the upcoming presidential election have repeated the refrain that the race will be extremely tight. Last month, CNN’s astute commentator Jeff Greenfield hosted an entire segment on how easily this election could turn out like 2000, with President Bush and Sen. John Kerry splitting victories in the popular vote and the electoral college. Greenfield even threw out the possibility of an electoral college split of 269-269, brought about by a shift of just two swing states that went for Bush last time, New Hampshire, and West Virginia.
[…]
The campaign staffs themselves have been saying for months that they anticipate that the race will go down to the wire. In late April, Republican party chairman Ed Gillespie told The New York Times that he expected a “very, very close” race. This winter, Democratic party chairman Terry McAuliffe urged Ralph Nader not to enter the race, fearing that the perpetual candidate could take precious votes away from Kerry in a race sure to be won by a hairline margin.
But Todd isn’t buying it. In fact, looking at election results over the last quarter century, he challenges the conventional wisdom — persuasively — and concludes this race will be a landslide, probably for Kerry.
The key to the observation is noting the key differences between presidential elections in years with an open race (no incumbent) vs. re-election races. In the last six campaigns, four have featured an incumbent seeking a second term — 1980, 1984, 1992, and 1996. In all four, the races weren’t close, at least by looking at the Electoral College. Two incumbents were beated badly, while two incumbents cruised easily to second terms.
In fact, while there are plenty of analyses out there comparing 2004 to 2000 and 1992, Todd notes an even more useful point of comparison — 1980, with Bush playing the role of Jimmy Carter.
That year, the country was weathering both tough economic times (the era of “stagflation”–high inflation concurrent with a recession) and frightening foreign policy crises (the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). Indeed, this year Bush is looking unexpectedly like Carter. Though the two presidents differ substantially in personal style (one indecisive and immersed in details, the other resolute but disengaged), they are also curiously similar. Both are religious former Southern governors. Both initially won the presidency by tarring their opponents (Gerald Ford, Al Gore) with the shortcomings of their predecessors (Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton). Like Carter, Bush is vulnerable to being attacked as someone not up to the job of managing impending global crises.
Everyone expected the 1980 election to be very close. In fact, Reagan won with 50.8 percent of the popular vote to Carter’s 41 percent (independent John Anderson won 6.6 percent) — which translated into an electoral avalanche of 489 to 49. The race was decided not so much on the public’s nascent impressions of the challenger, but on their dissatisfaction with the incumbent.
I think Todd may be on to something here. He only used the last six campaigns to shape this observation, but taking this back twice as far (the last 12 campaigns) produces a very similar result.
In fact, nearly every re-election campaign since 1956 has produced a common result: a blowout. It’s a surprising pattern. Three of the four open races have been very close (1960, 1968, and 2000 had paper-thin margins of victory, 1988 did not), while all six of the re-election campaigns haven’t been close at all (1956, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1992, and 1996). 1964 and 1976 had incumbents seeking their first full terms — LBJ and Ford — but neither can really be characterized as “re-election” campaigns, so I’ve discounted them for this analysis.
I should note, of course, that some of this is just for fun. Historical trends make for interesting fodder, but they lack meaningful predictive value. It’s like the post I wrote a few months back noting that election years that end in “4” tend to be blowouts. It’s interesting (to me, anyway) but it doesn’t tell us much.
That said, Todd’s analysis relies on more than just calendar quirks and notes inherent structural advantages Kerry has against an incumbent with several strikes against him. Be sure to take a look.