According to respected Rasmussen model Trump is currently just 683 electoral college votes shy of the 270 needed to win.
I saw a comment today that noted that beltway wisdom still favored Trump being reelected in November, and I did a google search to see whether that was true. Curiously I found lots of references to prediction models that show Trump cruising to victory, despite historically low approval ratings, but these were all stories from early February or earlier. “What are those models saying now?” I wondered.
Fortunately Rasmussen provided a link to an “infallible” Model for predicting the outcome of a first year incumbent reelection effort almost exactly a year ago.
The author, Alan Abramowitz is a a professor at Emory University and part of the Larry Sabato team that gets so much press around their predictions every cycle. He uses regression to generate a model to predict the incumbent’s electoral votes. It turns out this is very simple:
A first year incumbent starts out with a base of 268 electoral votes.
For each point of net approval he gains 2.46 additional votes.
Even Trumps historically low approval at net -13 only costs him -32 electoral votes.
The big factor in the model is economic growth, specifically gdp growth in the second quarter of the election year. Each point of 2nd qtr gdp is worth 19.7 electoral votes. To get his total to the magic 273 Trump just needs second quarter growth to come in at 1.87%, about average for his presidency so far.
Unfortunately, it looks like 2nd quarter growth might come up a little short. The current Conference Board consensus prediction for the 2nd quarter is for the economy to shrink by 33%. -33 times 19.7 is -649 leaving Trump a mere 683 electoral votes shy of the 270 needed to win a second term.
All is not lost yet, though. If he can get the economy going enough to cut the predicted second quarter losses to less than 12%, the model predicts he will actually win one whole electoral vote. It does not predict which benighted and backward state might provide this triumph, but there it is, a path to avoiding total embarrassment.
Since apparently 3rd quarter economic conditions are not fully appreciated in time to affect the election, the potential that premature opening of the economy might bring a second wave of infection that will unnecessarily kill hundreds of thousands and plunge the US into a depression will not impact the outcome in the fall.
Currently, evil Democratic governors are trying to sabotage the economy, by telling people to stay in place and avoid returning to crowded workplaces and places of worship, just to ensure that 2nd quarter gdp growth will be below the 2% mark needed to reelect Trump. It is easy to understand why sensible Republican officials like Kemp in Georgia and DeSantis in Florida are so eager to reopen the economies in their states.
Some people just can’t afford to be out of work.