No, Joe: even without the 2008 crash, McCain would not have beaten Obama | Harry J Enten

Vice-President Biden was probably just being kind – but the idea that Senator McCain might have won the 2008 election is bunk

US Vice-President Joe Biden says a lot of funny things. This weekend, the ever-hilarious veep said that John McCain “probably” would have defeated Barack Obama in the 2008 election – were it not for the global financial crisis following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on 15 September 2008. I disagree wholeheartedly with Biden’s assertion: Barack Obama would have been in a strong position to win 2008 even without the financial collapse.

Let’s start off with Obama’s most basic advantage at the time: the GOP had held the White House for the eight years before he ran. From 1952 through to 2004, there have been six instances of a party holding the White House for more than a term. In the subsequent election – after eight years with the president on their side – that party won only one of those those six elections. Whether the incumbent party held the White House for more than four years explains about 30% of the difference in vote margins in elections for over half a century, heading right into 2008.

These odds were made worse by an economy that was already lousy months before the crash. When averaging across multiple segments of the economy, growth was negative by early July. The only other year growth was negative across this many sectors was in 1980, per Nate Silver’s economic index. In that election, Jimmy Carter became the only president since the start of the 20th century to lose after taking the White House from the rival party – and he got blown out by 9pt.

This 2008 recession, combined with an increasingly disliked war in Iraq, caused President George W Bush’s approvals to plunge to almost 30% by 1 September 2008 – the lowest early September approval for any sitting president before a major election, going back all the way since modern scientific polling began in the 1930s. The only president who comes close is Truman, who had approval ratings around 32% and 33% going into the 1946 midterms and 1952 presidential election. His party lost control of both chambers of Congress and then the presidency.

Indeed, the fundamentals strongly indicate that Obama should have beaten McCain even before the financial collapse. Don’t believe me? Look at the models advanced by political scientists in August of 2008. Using a combination of economic measures, Bush’s approval ratings, Obama-McCain poll data, and a host of other factors, six of nine models written up in the journal of the American Political Science Association had Obama beating McCain. The combination models had Obama winning 80% of the time, by an average of 4pt.

Focusing only on the polling from Obama v McCain leads us to the same conclusion. From the time Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, in early June, through the announcement of his running mate, in late August, Pollster.com recorded 103 national polls. McCain led in six of them. Three of the polls showed a tie. That means that 91% of the polls conducted during the summer had Obama beating McCain, by an average of a slightly less than 4pt, and with the median of Obama winning by 3pt.

McCain did take the lead after the Republican National Convention, by an advantage of a little less than 2pt. A smart convention plan, along with the unexpected emergence of Sarah Palin, provided a temporary boost. But looking at the data, the boost was clearly not going to last. The Pollster.com aggregate (being its most sensitive in order to catch any micro-trends) already had Obama regaining the lead by 14pt in September.

The research seems to concur with a naive reading of the polls. Looking at wave studies on respondents’ choices before and after the collapse, two different studies both agree that Obama would have won without the collapse. Sunshine Hillygus and Michael Henderson (pdf) found that the collapse gave Obama a single point more. Richard Johnston, Emily Thorson, and Andrew Gooch (pdf) put the gain at 3pt. Neither gain was “decisive” in determining the winner the election (and my thanks to Nadia Hassan for sending me links to these studies).

Thus, I’m fairly confident that Obama would have won the 2008 election without the financial disaster of September 2008. Would he have won by less? Maybe, though not by much. The economy, already limping, and negative views about Iraq drove opinion on Bush down to record lows; McCain, as the candidate of Bush’s party, was hardpressed to overcome these obstacles, which gave him a deficit in the polls long before the Lehman’s collapse. McCain would almost certainly have lost to Obama even if the economy had not buckled towards the end of the election season.

Harry J Enten

It’ll take more than a presidential library to make George W Bush popular | Harry J Enten

Don’t be fooled by a new poll showing Americans think fondly of ‘Dubya’. Of recent presidents, only Richard Nixon was less liked

The George W Bush presidential library is opening this week. Not surprisingly, fans of the former president are out in full force trying to help with the rehabilitation’s of Bush’s image.

Bush, of course, ended his presidency with an approval rating around 30%. This previous low, combined with the library opening, has helped give an impression of elevation to a new ABC/Washington Post poll that put his retrospective job approval rating at 47%.

The fact that President Obama’s approval rating in the current HuffPollster aggregate is a similar 48% only helps with the intrigue. The Washington Free Beacon wrote an article titled “Dubya’s Approval Matches Obama’s”. Add on the fact that Obama’s approval rating and Bush’s retrospective approval on the economy approval rating are about the same, and you got the makings of a great press narrative.

Let me be the one who tries to nip this story in the bud. I have no clue what type of person George W Bush is, or how history will view him in the future. What I do know is that the 47% retrospective approval rating should be put in context.

First, retrospective approval ratings should almost never be compared to current job approval ratings. Humans have a tendency to remember their elected officials more fondly than they did when they left office. Back in 2010, Gallup asked Americans what their retrospective approval rating was for Presidents John F Kennedy through George W Bush. In every instance except for one, the retrospective approval was higher than the final approval was when they left office.

Most Republicans, for instance, love to make fun of Jimmy Carter. Carter was the only president of the 20th century to lose re-election after replacing a president of a different party. He left office with a 34% job approval rating. His retrospective job approval rating in the 2010 Gallup poll jumped by 18pt.

Second, Bush’s retrospective approval is the second worst among presidents in the last 50 years ago. To save you doing the math, Carter’s 52% approval rating is higher than Bush’s 47%. Only the Watergate-tainted Richard Nixon recorded a lower retrospective approval than Bush.

Most presidents have retrospective approval ratings above 60%. All but Nixon and Bush have +10 or better retrospective net approval ratings. Thus, not only did Bush tie for the second worst final approval rating while in office, but he is also has the second worst retrospective job approval rating.

Third, the Gallup data should make clear that George W Bush hasn’t seen much recovery over the past three years in his retrospective approval rating. The 47% in the latest Washington Post poll is the same as the 47% that Gallup found in 2010. The 50% disapproval now is nearly identical to the 51% three years ago. Yes, people view him more rosily now than they did during his presidency, but that effect has been baked in for a while now. He’s not getting more loved as time goes by.

Finally, the retrospective approval rating probably gives a false sense of how Americans view Bush now. Remember that a retrospective approval is exactly that – retrospective. The better way to view how Bush stands with the American public is his current favorable ratings. In the past two years, there have been five polls conducted that have asked about Bush’s favorable rating with the American public.

Bush currently holds an average -5pt net favorable rating with the American public. President Obama’s favorable rating is almost exactly the reverse of that, at +7pt in the HuffPollster aggregate. Indeed, even the losing Republican nominee Mitt Romney ended the 2012 campaign with a higher net favorable than Bush, at -3pt.

It’s no wonder that President Bush continues to hurt the Republican party. Mitt Romney tried his hardest to tie what many saw as a lackluster economy in 2012 to President Obama. The problem was that most Americans still blamed Bush over Obama. In the network exit polls, 53% said the economic problems were more Bush’s than Obama’s fault. Only 38% of Americans disagreed.

So, George W Bush may be more fondly thought of now than he was when he left office, yet this is to be expected – and discounted. Almost all presidents see a boost after they leave office. Bush is still quite unpopular compared with other former presidents, and his current favorable rating is far worse than President Obama’s. No library opening is changing that. Republicans would be wise to stay away from embracing George W Bush for the time being.

• This article has been amended to reflect updated polling data as of 25 April 2013.

Harry J Enten

Patterns of Under Voting in Gambier and the rest of Knox County, Ohio (Part One)

Among residents of Knox County, Ohio, the political differences between Gambier (home of Kenyon College) and the rest of the county are well-known. Gambier is populated by generally liberal students and faculty who (mostly) vote Democratic; Michelle Obama even visited the Kenyon campus in 2012. In contrast, the rest of the county is largely filled with generally conservative voters who tend to vote Republican. Indeed, 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney held a campaign event at the Ariel Corporation in Mount Vernon. Overall, Knox County voted for Governor Romney over President Obama by a 61 to 37 percent margin. Outside of Gambier and surrounding College Township, President Obama won the most votes in only one precinct (there was a tie in another precinct).

Using precinct-level data from the Knox County Board of Elections, this post focuses on another noticeable difference in voting patterns that exists between Gambier and the rest of Knox County: the extent to which “under voting” takes place in various contests. According to Wikipedia, an “under vote” occurs when, “the number of choices selected by a voter in a contest is less than the maximum number allowed for that contest or when no selection is made for a single choice contest.”

A close look at the Knox County Board of Elections website reveals an interesting pattern when one examines under voting by precinct. In the 2012 presidential race, not a single “presidential under vote” was cast in either Gambier precinct (the surrounding College Township precinct also saw no under votes). What makes this so interesting? In the rest of the county every other precinct had at least one under vote in the race for president. Indeed, 213 votes (~0.8% of all votes cast) in the rest of the county were under votes.

What makes this pattern even more remarkable is that it begins to reverse itself in other races down ballot. Outside of the race for president, the under vote rate in Gambier exceeded the norm for the rest of the county.

For example:

In the Senate Race between Senator Sherrod Brown (D) and State Treasurer Josh Mandel (R), there were 87 under votes in Gambier or ~6.5% of all votes cast. Outside of the Gambier precincts, there were 619 under votes or ~2.3% of all votes cast.
In the House Race between Representative Bob Gibbs (R) and Challenger Joyce Healy-Abrams, there were 140 under votes in Gambier or ~10.5% of all votes cast. Outside of the Gambier precincts, there were 1360 under votes or ~5% of all votes cast. This despite the fact that the only debate between Gibbs and Healy-Abrams was actually held at Kenyon College in Gambier!
In the “Nonpartisan” State Supreme Court Race between Incumbent Robert Cupp (“R”) and Challenger Bill O’Neill (“D”), there were 730 under votes or ~54.8% (!) of all votes cast. Outside of the Gambier precincts, there were 6453 under votes or ~23.6% of all votes cast. (Note: I called this race “nonpartisan” due to the fact that, although no partisan labels appear on ballots, candidates are nominated through partisan primaries.)
The pattern is similar in other races down ballot.

So what implications can be drawn from this?

Here are three initial takeaways:

The Power of the Obama Campaign: Young voters really connected with President Obama and his campaign did a great job of reaching out to these voters and getting them to turn out to the polls. These voters were excited to vote for President Obama and filled out their ballots in such a way as to act on this excitement. This excitement about voting for President Obama, however, did not represent increased loyalty to the Democratic Party as a whole; this was made clear in the 2010 midterms as turnout among young voters remained relatively constant with historical patterns and did not experience any noticeable surge.
Importance of Partisan Cues: The substantial drop off that took place in the Gambier precincts for the State Supreme Court race underscores the odd things that can happen in ostensibly non-partisan judicial races. While some Kenyon students were willing to vote for a candidate with a “D” next to their name, they weren’t about to go searching for the partisan affiliation of a non-partisan candidate. (Good work on non-partisan judicial elections is being done by University of Pittsburgh Professor Chris Bonneau and UNC Graduate Student John Lappie.)
Under voting isn’t a liberal thing, it’s a college student thing: While under voting rates were above average in the Gambier precincts, this was not the case in the College Township Precinct. Home to some Kenyon employees, College Township has an ever-so-slight Democratic tilt. Furthermore, under voting in College Township was in line with the rates for the rest of the county. For example, 5 voters or ~2.2% under voted in the U.S. Senate race between Senator Brown and State Treasurer Mandel in College Township.

These implications are certainly not the only ones that can (or should) be drawn from this data. Indeed, the next post in this series will examine the practical implications of under voting for low turnout races, focusing specifically on the Mount Vernon School Levy.

Immigration reform won’t deliver a Latino voter ‘bonanza’ to Democrats | Harry J Enten

To assume that 11 million undocumented immigrants potentially eligible to vote will change US political arithmetic is erroneous

I have been quite skeptical about the ability of the Republican party to win over Latino voters. As others and I have noted, Latinos don’t vote Democratic just because of immigration policy. They vote Democratic because they are more ideologically “in sync” with the Democratic party. That’s why I’ve felt that going along with immigration reform was unlikely to net Republicans many Latino voters.

That said, I can’t agree either with the math in a Politico article titled “Immigration reform could be a bonanza for Democrats”. The article starts off promisingly enough with the premise that if immigration reform passed and undocumented immigrants became citizens, Latinos would start voting Democratic in even larger numbers. I can go along with this because the main reason anyone votes for or against a political party is for its economic platform, and 81% of first generation Latino immigrants say they want a “bigger government with more services”, compared to only 48% of Americans overall.

Politico then uses the commonly quoted figure of 11 million undocumented immigrants and claims that there would, therefore, be “up to” 11 million undocumented immigrants up for grabs if they all became citizens. If these 11 million then voted along the lines of the Latinos who cast a ballot in 2012, Obama would have won the national vote by 7pt instead of 4pt. He could have carried Arizona and even Texas, which were each won comfortably by Republican Mitt Romney.

The problem I have, though, is why would anyone use the 11 million figure for reference.

First off, 1 million undocumented immigrants are under the age of 18. I don’t care what your immigration status is, you can’t vote in United States presidential elections if you are under the age of 18.

Second, of the 10 million adults, 19% aren’t actually Latino; 11% are Asian. Asian voting patterns tend to be less stable than Latinos. In the past election, Asians went for President Obama by about 45pt. Twenty years ago, they went for Republican George HW Bush.

Without more research (and there is surprisingly little of it), it’s unclear to know how undocumented Asian voting patterns would change given immigration reform. Also, keep in mind that about 60% of these Asian immigrants are in California and Washington State alone – so they’re not exactly going to be a game-changer in the electoral college.

Third, I tend to doubt that all 8 million adult Latino undocumented immigrants would go for citizenship. A Latino Decisions poll says 87% of them would, but I’m skeptical. Only 60% of all legal immigrants actually apply for citizenship. Since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, only about 40% of the newly eligible immigrants by so-said act became citizens. It would be reasonable to expect a similar percentage this time.

Only 36% of Mexican immigrants who are eligible to become citizens have gone through the process. Mexicans make up 72% of all undocumented Latino immigrants. Six in ten of the other 28% of eligible Latino immigrants have become citizens.

All together, if undocumented Latino immigrants become citizens at the rate that eligible Latino immigrants do, then we’re looking at 3.5 million new voting-age citizens. That 3.5 million is a far cry from the 11 million we first talking about.

Finally, just how many of these 3.5 million undocumented Latino immigrants can be expected to vote in the presidential election? Per the standard census Current Population Survey (CPS), only 49.9% of all voting age Latino American citizens cast a ballot in 2008. (Note, there is no report available for 2012 as of this point.) Based on pre-election surveys and work by Michael McDonald, there is reason to believe that percentage may have dropped further in 2012.

All told, it would seem that only about 1.7 million new Latino voters would be added if undocumented immigrants were granted citizenship. Nationally, this would be a net of about 775,000 votes. This would increase Obama’s vote margin, but not to 7pt; it would only go up to about 4.4pt – in other words, half a point from where it actually was in November 2012. Even adding in new Asian voters, who vote at a lower rate than even Latinos, and other undocumented immigrants (and controlling for the percentage who apply for citizenship, percentage of citizens who vote, and the percentage who voted for Obama), the margin probably only goes up to, at most, 4.6pt.

The amount this would shift individual states in elections is debatable. Take Nevada, where, at last count, there were 190,000 undocumented immigrants – the highest percentage of any state population. Most of them are Latino. Apply the same math we did above, Obama would have gained about 17,000 votes. It would have increased his state margin of victory by 1.4pt. That’s not nothing, but we’re talking about the state with the largest percentage undocumented immigrants.

Most states aren’t close to Nevada’s undocumented immigrant population, while the ones that are simply aren’t competitive at the president level: Arizona, California, and New Jersey. No state in 2012 would have had a different outcome if undocumented immigrants were given the right to vote.

The truth of the matter is that passing immigration reform won’t be a votes “bonanza” for the Democratic party because of potentially or newly enfranchised undocumented immigrants. That doesn’t mean passing immigration reform will help the Republican party among Latinos; the GOP should probably still be worrying about its Latino voter appeal. But it’s not facing a landslide from a new citizen electorate.

Harry J Enten

Republicans take note: Americans are embracing immigration reform | Harry J Enten

As with gay marriage, voter views on immigrants and immigration have ‘evolved’. The GOP can only lose by blocking reform

The electoral analysis of the immigration debate these days almost exclusively focuses on Latinos, which makes sense, but also misses the point. Not only do I personally think that most Latino voters won’t change their voting allegiance in response to any new immigration reform, but also let’s note that all Americans are shifting their views on immigration.

Back in 2010, politicians on both sides of the aisle were worried that they could be knocked out of office by people who wanted “build up a fence”. Immigration, for instance, was a major rallying cry for insurgent Tea Party activists. A New York Times report at the time noted:

“Enforcement would be more far-reaching than anything in place now – or anything proposed by the administration of President George W Bush.”

Now, however, Americans of all stripes have become increasingly progressive on almost all the issues around illegal immigration.

An overwhelmingly majority of Americans now believe that people who came to this country illegally should not be forced to leave it. In the latest CBS News poll, 74% of Americans – a record high – believe that undocumented immigrants should be allowed to apply for citizenship or stay as guest workers. That’s up from 57% in mid-2011. Per a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey, there isn’t a single demographic group opposed to this proposal, and that includes Tea Partiers, Republicans and white people without a college degree.

More amazingly, more Americans now believe in a pathway to citizenship, rather than a guest worker program. CBS News found that a majority of Americans, 53%, are now in favor of letting citizens stay and apply for citizenship. That percentage is way up from 37% in 2011, while the percentage of Americans who support a guest worker program has stayed steady, at about 20%.

While Americans are pretty evenly split on offering outright citizenship to undocumented immigrants, they see young people differently. Well over 60% of Americans, and as many as 74% in a CBS News survey, are in favor of a pathway to citizenship for children who came here under the age of 30 – so long as they meet certain conditions. In the CBS News survey, this includes 60% of Republicans. This support is emphatically up from 2010, when only 54% of Americans would vote for a similar policy, per Gallup.

Perhaps more important than any one immigration policy is the motive behind the policy. A slim majority of Americans now believes that an immigration plan should focus on providing legal residency to people here, rather than on stopping the flow of immigrants into the country. Per CNN/ORC, the generational divide is wide. Over 60% of those under 50 put priority on integration, while those 50 and older are far more evenly split. Majorities of Democrats, independents and white people prioritize residency.

Since May 2010, there has been a 15pt increase in the percentage of Americans who want to concentrate on how best to let undocumented immigrants stay. The percentage of those who want to increase attention on policing the border has dropped from 60% to only 43%.

Indeed, the attitude towards immigrants themselves has changed tremendously over the past few years. Today, 49% of Americans believe that the hard work of immigrants strengthens the country, and only 41% believe they are a burden, according to Pew. In 2006, the margin was reversed with 52% saying immigrants were a burden and 41% disagreeing. We should only expect the margin to rise in the future, as 59% of 18-29 year-olds say immigrants strengthen society, while only 37% of people 65 and older agree.

So what does this all mean for the immigration debate going forward?

Whatever policy the GOP espouses, immigration, in and of itself, isn’t likely to cost Republicans many votes. The issue ranks very low for most voters, and most Latino voters are Democratic for other reasons.

The real problem for the Republican party is that its brand is currently in the can. With favorable numbers in the low 30s, the GOP is seen as out-of-step with Americans on many issues.

That’s why you’re seeing Democrats jumping out to a large lead on the House ballot for 2014. The latest Quinnipiac poll puts Democrats up by 8pt, more than enough for them to take back the House. Voters are, at this point, not willing to vote for the party that opposes what they believe in. What Republicans don’t need, then, is another issue – that is, immigration – that contributes to notion that they’re out-of-touch with the way most Americans feel.

Opposing immigration reform would be yet another instance of GOP “obstructionism”, which is what most people see as the Republicans’ biggest fault. Unlike certain issues on which Americans agree with Democratic positions but trust Republicans to handle better – gun control, for example – voters are connecting immigration position with political party. More voters trust the Democrats on immigration; voters trust Obama over congressional Republicans on immigration reform by a 17pt margin.

Whether or not voters will still think Republicans clueless in the run-up to the midterm elections is another question. Right now, though, we can only say that progressive immigration reform has become popular – and opposing change won’t help Republicans at all.

Harry J Enten

Why the bully pulpit is Obama’s only hope for gun control | Harry J Enten

With public will waning, the president’s paradox is that making gun control his issue is divisive but nothing gets done otherwise

President Obama tried to breathe new life into his stalled gun control agenda on Thursday, but will he have any impact? He may not have a choice: it looks like some kind of action on his part is the only hope for reform.

Over the past few weeks, the percentage of Americans favoring new gun control regulations have dropped across the board. Fox News polling saw support for background checks with new gun purchases fall by 6pt, to 85%; mental health checks by 11pt, to 72%; new ammunition limits by 10pt, to 70%; high-capacity magazines bans by 2pt, to 54%; armed guards in schools by 9pt, to 51%; and assault weapons bans by 3pt, to 51%.

The good news for those favoring tighter gun control is that most of the specific proposals still have majority support. Background checks, the center of the White House’s gun control package, still have 85%, per Fox News; and 90%, per CBS News. Even the long-doomed ban on assault weapons is at 51% and 49%, per Fox and CBS, respectively.

Of course, the issue has always been that any gun control package presented by the president would ultimately become polarized along party lines. That is, people may support specific measures in theory, but they’ll disagree as soon as it becomes “President Obama’s gun control plan”.

We haven’t had any polls attach Obama’s name to gun control questions in the past few weeks. We have had broader gun control questions, though, that generally matched Obama’s past proposals. I also feel these broader questions do a better job measuring the public will on gun control legislation.

The drops in support for strong, broad gun control measures have been dramatic. CBS found the percentage of Americans who want stricter regulations fell from 57%, immediately following Newtown, to 47% now. And 50% of Americans saw no need for stricter regulations, or preferred, in fact, loosening gun restrictions.

Only 43% of Americans said that they wanted to put major restrictions on gun ownership or make them illegal, in the latest CNN/ORC poll. That’s down from 52% post Newtown. Meanwhile, the percentage who wants only minor or no restrictions is at 55% – the highest percentage ever measured by CNN/ORC.

What happened here?

Part of it, no doubt, is that President Obama’s overall popularity has dropped off in recent weeks. I noted previously that his overall approval was highly correlated with support for his gun control package. That’s why you see red state Democrats hesitant to get behind background checks, even as they poll at astronomical levels.

The other cause is that gun control has left the news. As I spoke about previously, the spike in support for tighter gun control after Newtown was reminiscent of trends after the Columbine massacre. These two gun tragedies were unlike others, such as the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting, because they became remained top news stories or some time, and were thus able to enter the public consciousness.

Eventually, however, Columbine received less and less news coverage, and the polling bump faded. We can check for the same pattern with the Newtown shootings by searching the News Library archive, which tracks newspapers and television transcripts.

In the month following the Newtown tragedy, the phrase “gun control” was mentioned 23,484 times. In the second month, it actually climbed slightly to 23,506. During March, through Wednesday, the number dropped to only 9,238. Now, that’s still much higher than the 1,243 mentions in the month prior to Newtown, but you don’t have to be a statistician to see the downward trajectory.

The president can help gun control reenter the news, and thus the minds of Americans. Danny Hayes found that in the week following the president’s initial announcement of his plans, the press mentioned gun control twice as much as previously. During that same period, the percentage of Americans who wanted tighter gun control barely strayed from the post-Newtown high.

One might expect that a similar news spike and rebounding of support for stricter gun control can happen, given President Obama’s new push.

This not to say that the president can convince the American public of something that they don’t believe. What he can do, according to research by Brandice Canes-Wrone on budget issues, is take stalled, popular proposals, and create a campaign issue out of them, thus convincing Congress to act. Background checks are, as Mark Blumenthal pointed out, the perfect example of a policy that is massively popular – and going nowhere in Congress.

We already see Democratic donors and grassroots organizations following Obama’s lead, and trying to turn background checks into a campaign issue. As reported by Greg Sargent, top Democratic donor Kenneth Lerer won’t give money to Democrats who don’t back gun control. The Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas followed up this report by hoping:

“It is a start of a trend. Too many big liberal voters have given to the party and candidates uncritically in the past.”

Of course, this could all easily fail. The president could simply polarize the debate even more. This campaign may make red state Democrats even more squeamish, and will almost certainly make the Republican-controlled House even less likely to move towards more regulation.

But right now, the issue is already polarized. Gun control has gone nowhere in Congress, while the president was saying little. Nationally, public will on the issue is fading. The situation for gun control advocates could hardly be worse, in fact.

The flipside, though, is that by speaking, Obama can engage and activate a public that is still firmly in favor of background checks. He just might be able to change the dynamic and make politicians recognize that, politically, they are on the wrong side of the issue. Thursday’s speech was a start, but it’s all uphill from here on.

Harry J Enten

Obama talks peace, but Palestinians and Israelis more sceptical than ever | Harry J Enten

In 2008, both Israelis and Palestinians wanted a two-state solution. Today, they agree on just one thing: Obama can’t help

When President Obama first entered the presidency, great expectations had been raised by the campaign catchwords of “hope and change”. One of the US policy areas this extended to was the Palestinian/Israeli peace process: in 2010, Obama said that a Palestinian state was a realistic goal within a year.

In practice, that objective is no closer today than it was in 2008, and arguably is further away. So, is there any real chance now of serious peace negotiations? And can Obama be helpful in restarting the peace process?

Ask the people concerned – Israelis and Palestinians – and the answer is no, on both counts.

The percentage of Palestinians who want to return to the 1967 borders and normalize relations with Israel under the “Saudi Plan” has fallen far since the beginning of Obama’s presidency. Back in December 2008, 66% of Palestinians agreed to this plan. Now, only 53% think it’s a good idea.

On the Israeli side, support for the two-state solution is not down since the beginning of Obama’s term, but the demographics spell doom. A very high 69% of Israelis over the age of 50 want a two-solution. That drops to 63% among those 30-49, and to an even lower 42% among those 18-29. Furthermore, 25% of Israeli youth want to annex the West Bank territories without granting Palestinians full rights, if (according to the poll question) that was necessary to keep Israel a Jewish and democratic state.

The only good news is that both a majority of Palestinians and a majority of Israelis are still in favor of a two-state solution: 52% of Palestinians want it and 62% of Israelis want it. The problem is that this is a very broadbrush question.

The percentage of Palestinians who want an independent state alongside an Israel that is a state for the “Jewish people” and want Palestine as the state for the “Palestinian” people is way down. At the beginning of Obama’s term, 53% of Palestinians agreed to that. Now? Only 40% of Palestinians do. This is a problem for any peace settlement considering that 58% of Israelis want Israel to remain a specifically Jewish democracy.

It doesn’t help that neither side trusts the other: 61% of Palestinians think that Israelis’ real intention is to create a state “to cover all the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean sea and its Arab citizens”; 67% of Israelis think that the peace process problems are beyond Israel’s control (that is, on the Arab side)

Not surprisingly, Palestinians and Israelis alike have very little hope for peace. A full 62% of Palestinians think that peace is not possible at this time, while 54% of Israelis don’t believe that the two-state solution is possible.

Meanwhile, President Obama seems to have squandered any chance for helping out with peace talks. Back when Obama first took office, 57% of Palestinians wanted the United States to play a stronger role in the pace process; 41% thought Obama had improved the way the United States dealt with Middle East issues, against only 7% who thought that there had been a regression. A relatively optimistic 35% of Palestinians thought that Obama would increase the chances of peace, while just 12% thought it would reduce the chance.

All that hope is gone on the Palestinian side. Now, 93% of Palestinians were dissatisfied with the United States role in November’s Gaza conflict. Only 2% of Palestinians currently want the United States to act as mediator if peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis resumed. After Obama’s re-election, 50% thought that his victory would have a negative impact on peace negotiations, as opposed to the 10% who thought it would have a positive impact.

Obama, on the other hand, blew it with the Israelis pretty much right away. When he first entered office, 31% of Israelis thought he was pro-Israel, against 14% who thought he was pro-Palestinian. After he delivered his Cairo speech in 2009, six months into his presidency, 51% of Israelis thought that Obama was pro-Palestinian, while just 4% believed he was more pro-Israeli. By the time of the 2012 American presidential election, Israeli Jews favored Republican Mitt Romney over Obama by almost a 3:1 margin.

Today, Obama’s numbers in Israel are still pretty low: 36% of Israelis think Obama is pro-Palestinian, which 10pt lower than the 26% who think he is pro-Israeli. Israelis are also doubtful that Obama in his second term can help out with the peace process. Just 11% of Israelis believe that Obama can be helpful in bringing about peace over the next four years.

The ugly truth is that the Palestinians and Israelis are arguably further apart on peace now than they have been at any point in the past 20 years. Both sides want a settlement, but they can’t see how to achieve it and they don’t trust each other. The only aspect they really agree upon at all is that President Obama will not be helpful in establishing peace. Whether as a symptom or as a partial cause of the impasse, Obama has succeeded only in alienating himself from both Palestinians and Israelis.

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Harry J Enten

President Obama is about to lose the PR battle on the sequester | Harry J Enten

The president’s numbers on the sequester are falling. He risks losing his edge if he doesn’t change tactics soon

The sequester talks drone on while congressional Republicans and President Obama cannot reach an agreement to stop it. Obama hopes that the public will force congress’s hand by dint of their unpopularity, but Republicans seem content to muddle the field enough so that neither side holds a public relations edge. I think the Republicans are right, even though the president may have the power to turn it around.

More Americans trust Obama on the sequester than Republicans, but the margin between the two seems to be down. Obama held a 26pt lead over congressional Republicans in December per Pew Research, which dropped to 18pt in mid-February and 13pt by the end of the month. After the sequester took effect on 1 March, CBS, which has generally found better numbers for Obama than other pollsters, had the margin down to 5pt.

Interestingly, a lot of this movement isn’t because more people are blaming Obama alone – more people are blaming both parties equally. The percentage of Americans blaming Obama was at its lowest 27%, and now rests at 33%. The percentage blaming just the Republicans has dropped from 53% in December to just 38% in March. The percentage blaming both sides or neither equally has risen from 20% in December to 29% now.

We see this split reflected in the approval ratings for Congress and the president. Congress continues to have approval ratings matched only by those for Lance Armstrong. The president’s approval ratings have, however, slid down from their post-election high; they’re now below 50% in the Real Clear Politics average, the first time since his re-election.

What’s happening?

First, it was unlikely that Americans would continue to blame just Congress. The president is, rightly or wrongly, going to get some flak when things go wrong. That’s why the president’s party loses when the economy is bad and wins when it’s good, even though the president really doesn’t have too much control over the economy.

Second, since congress is still massively unpopular, we can’t expect the public to only blame Obama. If you ask someone whether you can blame a snow storm on cold weather or the precipitation, chances are they will blame both.

Third, Americans are actually split between Obama’s and the Republicans’ general positions. Obama wants a “balanced” approach of new tax revenue and spending cuts. Republicans just want to cut taxes. Most polls indicate that Americans do want a compromised approached, but few of these polls break down what “balanced” means, exactly. The only poll to do so is a recent Fox News poll.

The percentage of Americans who want an equal mix of tax increases and spending cuts is 36%, which is statistically equal to the 33% who only want cuts. The true middle ground are the 19% who want mostly spending cuts with a small number of tax increases.

So how does President Obama get the public back on his side? He needs to make this debate about specifics. When Pew tested different policies on reducing the deficit, people only agreed on cuts to foreign aid. Americans wanted to increase or keep funding the same for all other specific policy programs or proposals.

The president could reach this goal in two ways. He could try something dramatic, like a government shutdown, as suggested by my friend Nate Cohn. This tactic would force the public to look very closely at the specifics.

The president could also try to use the bully pulpit. As the president knows, he cannot magically persuade the public to agree with his positions. Studies do show, however, that the president can highlight positions that are already popular with the public, and thus force the public’s will upon Congress.

Get that? Broad generalities on cutting spending do very well with the public. Specific ones do poorly. Every time the president talks about generalities like a “balanced” budget, he’s playing on turf far more favorable to Republicans.

You might say though that the president is still “playing to tie”. The truth, though, is that presidential approval seems to be more predictive of midterm elections outcomes than congressional approval. If the president’s approval rating drops, then congressional Democrats will end up paying the price. We saw this in 2010 midterm blowout: the public actually blamed Republicans more than Democrats, but the president’s approval rating was low and Republican winners stormed Congress.

Now, this isn’t to say that using specifics will immediately turn the fight in favor of Obama and the Democrats. I will say, though, that the president’s current strategy isn’t working. Even if congressional Republicans aren’t “winning”, they will be more than happy to see the president “not “winning”.

Harry J Enten

Has the Republican party lost young voters for good? | Harry J Enten

In 2012, millennials broke strongly for Obama. But Democrats cannot assume they’ve got the youth vote locked up indefinitely

Republican operatives all over the country are scrambling to figure out what’s wrong with the Republican party. Most have centered on analyzing the political leanings of millennials because they are a growing bloc, and because, for the past two elections, President Obama has won 60% or more of voters between the ages of 18 and 29.

The most common diagnosis is that Republicans are just too conservative for young voters. But I wouldn’t worry about, if I were a Republican …

1. Elections are still about the economy

Last week, I wrote about how President Obama was the economic favorite in the 2012 election. The economy was moving forward, albeit slowly. The economic situation was very similar to the 2004 election.

We can see this in the leading economic indicators (encompassing 10 economic variables) model of Bob Erikson and Chris Wlezien. It pointed to a 5pt Obama victory, slightly better than he actually did. The same model (without trial heat polls) gave Bush a 5.5pt edge (pdf) in 2004, slightly better than he did. Obviously, there is some error here in how the model performed, but that is to be expected without actually using polling.

The key takeaway is that an overarching measure of the economy forecasted the final result in both election years, even if the media argued the economy was in worse shape. The funny thing is that in both 2004 and 2012, Erikson and Wlezien noted in their write-ups before the election that the strength of the economy “may surprise” given what was being said about the state of the economy in the press.

The good news for Republicans is economies go up and they go down. If the economy turns south by 2016, as it did for 2008, the Republicans are going to start doing better again in the race for the White House. My friend Jamelle Bouie illustrated this point well in a column last week.

2. Ideology is overrated as a factor in presidential campaigns

Most smart analysts recognize that while Republicans hold deficits on who is trusted on many issues, that hasn’t stopped them from winning before. More voters approved of the Democratic party than the GOP in the 2010 election, yet Republicans won the House vote by 6.6pt.

In fact, the ideology of a presidential candidate makes only the slightest bit of difference. The generally accepted percentage among most academic literature is 1-2pt, from most extreme to most moderate. President Obama won by nearly 4pt.

Moreover, Mitt Romney, by almost any measure, was the second most moderate candidate next to Jon Huntsman in the Republican field. Romney was about as conservative as George W Bush in 2000. A more moderate candidate would have likely made little difference in 2012.

3. The GOP issue isn’t the youth – it’s everyone

Mitt Romney did worse across pretty much all age cohorts compared to President Bush in 2004.

Bush only won 43% of the 18-24 year-old cohort. There wasn’t much of an outcry about Bush’s young voter problem because he won. Two elections later, Romney won about 40% of the now 26-32 year-olds. This 3pt drop was entirely consistent with a national Republican drop of 3.5pt from Bush’s 50.7% to Romney’s 47.2%.

Other age groups are consistent with that effect. Bush won 53% of the then 30-44 year-old vote. This time, Romney nabbed 50% of the now 40-49 year-old cohort, which again matches the Republican drop of 3pt nationally. Same with the then 40-49 year-old vote, where Bush grabbed 54% and Romney walked away with 52% of the now 50-64 year-old cohort.

None of this is too surprising. As I wrote last week, age cohorts tend to remain at the same level of partisanship relative to the mean. A cohort’s “liberalism” or “conservatism” is dependent on the success of the presidential administration they come of age under. The now 26-32 year-olds came of age during the not too successful Bush administration and pretty solid Clinton years.

The factor, as discussed above, that moved all these groups slightly to the left is the economy.

4. The next generation of new voters will probably be more Republican-inclined than this one

Very well, you might say, but what about the addition of voters who turned 18 since 2004? Surely, they have tilted the electorate. Yet, the now 18-25 year-olds mostly took over for the 75-plus year-olds in 2004, who were very Democratic. That’s why age cohorts who cast a ballot in 2004 and 2012 voted the same relative to national vote, even as more millennials have turned 18.

Of course, a steady parade of Democratic millennials could make hell for the Republican party. They will be replacing the 60-74 year-olds of 2004 and now 68-82 year-olds, who have been 6-8pt more Republican than the nation as whole.

The good news for Republicans is that the new 13-18 year-olds don’t seem to be like today’s 18-32 year-old voters. As I noted last week, the men and women college freshmen of 2012 were 4-5pt less liberal than those of 2008, which brings them closer to middle-of-the-road freshmen of the beginning of the Carter and Clinton administrations.

High school students can’t vote yet, but scientific polling on them can be predictive. In 2004, 13-17 year-olds would have voted for John Kerry in the same numbers as those 18-24 per Gallup/Knowledge Networks. That translated into a huge win for Obama among 18-24 year-olds in 2008. In 2008, Harris Interactive found that those under 18 would have voted in a similar manner to their older co-millennials. And that, too, translated into a huge Obama win among 18-24 year-olds in 2012.

In 2012, high school students seem to be far more conservative. The margin among high school students in an American University/GfK poll between Obama-Romney was 20pt closer than among all college students, who as a group voted in the same fashion as all 18-29 year-olds. These high school students were also far more likely to be against abortion than their college counterparts.

The more limited liberalism of these 13-18 year-olds has, again, to do with youth responding to the president they grew up under. President Obama’s administration has been, by historical standards, middlingly successful – as can be seen in his projected historical ranking, so the voters who grew up under him are more oriented to the middle ground of politics, too.

Conclusion

None of this is to say that Republicans shouldn’t make changes. They should invest in better get-out-the-vote efforts. President Obama’s team clearly dominated the get-out-the-vote campaign in 2012, which may very well have won him the key state of Florida.

You’d also rather be the better-liked party. In an election where the fundamentals don’t favor either side, it could make the difference.

Yet, both of these examples are the exceptions that prove the point: ideological or infrastructural changes will really only matter in 1pt- or 2pt-margin elections, not 4pt ones. Republican losses in 2012 had little to do with demography.

The main problem Republicans faced in 2012, and will face in the next few years, is the same one Democrats confronted in 2004. The economy is picking up speed and the incumbent president’s party is being rewarded.

Harry J Enten

It’s not Romney’s fault – the economy helped re-elect Obama | Harry J Enten

Conservatives won’t let go of the notion that Romney wasted an election, even though Obama benefited from economic growth

Sometimes there are beliefs that just won’t die, no matter how false they are. Witness a new article in Commentary by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner. The authors argue that given the weak economy, Mitt Romney should have won the 2012 election. To be fair, these authors didn’t invent the claim, but they do take it to next the next level.

If you believe Romney lost when he should have won, then he must have made a fatal mistake which needs to be fixed so that Republicans can win again. For Gerson and Wehner, this logic led them down the path of demographics: they conclude that Romney’s biggest problem was a lack of minority outreach in a changing country. I don’t think you can say that Romney had a racial rainbow of support, exactly, but I do want to answer their basic question: did Romney flush away a victory that the economy should have delivered to him?

Actually, Romney always had an uphill battle: the economy narrowly favored President Obama’s re-election. Jamelle Bouie has stated this fact over and over again. John Sides, too, has stated this fact over and over again. Nate Silver has stated this fact over and over again. Have you noticed a pattern here? Smart experts reached the same conclusion. It’s part of the reason we all correctly called a close, but comfortable Obama victory in 2012. It’s why I said way back in September that it wouldn’t be Mitt Romney’s fault if he lost.

What are some people not seeing about the relationship between the economy and elections? For starters, most people don’t vote over absolute numbers, like an unemployment rate of near 8%. Voters choose whether to re-elect based on changes in numbers, like the unemployment rate dropping from 10% in 2009 to 8% in 2012. That’s why voters still overwhelmingly blamed Bush for bad economic conditions and not Obama, even if the unemployment rate remained high in a historical context.

To make the point mathematically (yes, that thing some fear), we can run a regression equation to predict Obama’s chances in 2012 – it’s not so bad: the equation compares growth in different sectors of the economy during prior elections. There were a few faulty models that were either based off of one economic variable or over-fit to match past results. The majority, however, favored Obama. Most of these either utilized just one economic variable or included a presidential approval variable. But in my opinion, one economic variable doesn’t tell the whole story and approval ratings can be influenced to some degree by the economy.

There are two models I know of that employed multiple economic indices and no approval ratings: Bob Erikson and Chris Wlezien’s leading economic indicator model and Nate Silver’s economic index. Erikson and Wlezien’s model simply takes into account continued quarter growth for elections since 1952, and uses the 10 leading economic variables (which are shown to be representative of overall strength in the economy), with quarters closer to the election weighted more heavily. Silver’s model takes into account rolling averages of a month to a year of seven economic variables, which range from personal income growth to forecasted GDP to the stock market for elections since 1968.

The results of these models were remarkably similar: small Obama victories. Erikson and Wlezien, who authored the great book The Timeline of Presidential Elections: How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter, actually overshot Obama’s 3.9pt win by about a point, calling for a 5pt Obama victory. Silver’s model slightly undershot it by having Obama take the election by about 3pt. The average of their results equals a 4pt Obama victory, or for Romney to hit the infamous 47%, which is pretty much where the numbers fell.

The average of the two most thorough economic models nailed the election results. This clearly indicates that given the economy, Obama should have won in 2012. A one or seven point victory would still indicate that 2012 was mostly about the economy – precision is more luck than anything else.

It’s important to remember that these models have margins of errors and elections aren’t only about the economy. Candidate ideology, for example, is generally worth a few points. Romney was generally seen as one of the more mainstream Republican candidates of 2012. Perhaps the even more moderate Jon Huntsman might have lost by only 2-3pt nationally.

Field work may have put Obama over the top in Florida – the closest state in 2012. But even if a better field organization yielded Romney those 29 additional electoral votes, Obama still would have had a major win.

The general point, though, is 2012, like most national elections, was mostly about the economy. A Mitt Romney victory would have actually been a surprise.

So, what about the Gerson and Wehner argument that Republicans will continue lose elections in which they are favored, unless they adjust to a new reality? It comes from a flawed premise of what happened in 2012, and doesn’t have much bearing on how the economy affected the race. It’s a completely different question as to whether or not Republicans will lose elections that the economy hands them. I’ll have more to say about that coming days.

What I’ll say for now is President Obama won the 2012 election because of the state of the economy, not in spite of it.

Harry J Enten

Margin of Σrror

Category Archives: Barack Obama

No, Joe: even without the 2008 crash, McCain would not have beaten Obama | Harry J Enten

It’ll take more than a presidential library to make George W Bush popular | Harry J Enten

Patterns of Under Voting in Gambier and the rest of Knox County, Ohio (Part One)

Immigration reform won’t deliver a Latino voter ‘bonanza’ to Democrats | Harry J Enten

Republicans take note: Americans are embracing immigration reform | Harry J Enten

Why the bully pulpit is Obama’s only hope for gun control | Harry J Enten

Obama talks peace, but Palestinians and Israelis more sceptical than ever | Harry J Enten

President Obama is about to lose the PR battle on the sequester | Harry J Enten

Has the Republican party lost young voters for good? | Harry J Enten

It’s not Romney’s fault – the economy helped re-elect Obama | Harry J Enten