Election 2016 Backdrop to 2016: Democrats are Vulnerable, not Dominant
Someone convinced the nation that the Democrats dominate and will continue to dominate politics. Furthermore, Obama’s wins in 2008 and 2012 are pointed to as proof. This has been an awesome coup in the sense that the country has digested this as the absolute truth.
It is very normal for the office of president to go back and forth between parties. It has been like this for the last two centuries! Currently, one president winning two consecutive terms caused a panic? This is not logical. In fact, if anyone stopped to look at the actual historical precedent, they would have found that Obama’s elections did not point to strength but to weakness.
Normally after a two-term president, the other major party wins. This should not be too surprising. The party’s best politician can no longer run for president after two terms and the party nominates someone who likely is not as strong. In contrast, the out-of-power party nominates its best candidate who is extremely motivated having been out-of-power for 8 years. I am not talking about the current nominees, but this is in essence what occurs. Additionally, the populace after 8 years is ready for a new message, unless the country is very satisfied and enthusiastic regarding the in-power party.
How do we measure if the country is satisfied after a two term president? The simplest way to compare such a situation over the last two centuries is to look at the margin of victory during the second-term election of the two-term president. If the party-in-power won by a very large margin, it is fairly assured that it will remain in power. If it is just snuck by in terms of popular vote, the next election’s results are very much in doubt and would tend to go to the other main party.
In general, follow-on or successor candidates of the in-power party do not normally gain as much of the popular vote as their two-term predecessors. This makes perfect sense. The party’s best candidate just served for two terms and its second best candidate, unless that candidate is ‘new’, will not be as popular. So, if the two-term president won 55% of the popular vote in the last election, we would expect the current candidate from the same party to get a lower percent of the vote.
Before getting into deeper analysis, let’s look at Obama’s margin of victory in 2012. Normally, the margin of victory, in terms of popular vote, of the second term election of a two-term president is a good indication of what to expect for the following election, unless of course there are strong indications that there will be a major change in election dynamics.
Chart 1: Second Term Popular Vote Margin of Victory
Comparing Obama’s second term margin of victory to other second term margins of victory shows that he did not win with a demanding lead. In fact, his second term win was marginal at best. Looking at this data shows that Obama’s second term contained little in terms of mandate. Obama is more or less on par with Bush (younger) in terms of popularity with the electorate going into a second term.
We can also look to see if a president wins a greater percentage of the popular vote during a second consecutive term in relation to the first term. We can assume that if the popular vote margin of victory increases from first to second term that the president’s situation has improved. If it decreases, then we can assume that it has deteriorated.
Chart 2: Difference between Popular Vote Margins of Victory, Second Term minus First Term, US Presidential Races
Judging from this metric, Obama does not look dominant. In fact, it would seem that Romney, his opponent in 2012, did an excellent job as it is historically extremely difficult to take votes from an incumbent president during a second election victory. This is not to say that incumbents don’t get defeated. However, if they do lose votes, they usually lose the election. Romney was able to chip away at the incumbent advantage showing that Obama’s position and that of the Democrats was not really as strong as it seems to be portrayed but in fact vulnerable.
The two main points here are that:
1. Obama won by a very slim margin in 2012 (his second term) which compared poorly with other second term presidents,
2. Obama lost popular votes in 2012 in comparison to his 2008 victory which is very unusual for a victorious incumbent which shows further weakness.
Although these are very obvious truths, political analysts do not seem to have taken these into consideration. In fact, the common knowledge seems to be that the Democrats and Obama have dominated US political life and that the Republicans never had a chance during the 2016 election. Looking at the data shows that Obama just barely squeaked into office in 2012. Obama’s mediocre election performance sends a poor signal for the Democrats in 2016 which has been sorely under-reported and under-analyzed.
The 2012 election did in fact lay the foundation for the 2016 race. However, it would seem like almost all analysts are viewing Obama’s victory in 2012 as a precedent for future Democratic victories. In reality, the follow-on or non-incumbent nominee of the in-power party normally needs a strong lead to win the race. On average the swing between the margin of victory of the second-term president’s race and the margin of victory (or loss) by the party’s follow-on nominee is approximately -10 percentage points. This average includes all of the examples, including the special cases set out below.
Let’s review further. If a second-term president wins by a popular vote margin of 12 percentage points, then (on average) the party’s follow-on nominee would win by 2 percentage points. In other words, the swing was a –10 percentage points. If the two-term president won by 5 percentage points in the second election, then the party’s follow-on nominee would actually lose by 5 percentage points. Averages are extremely difficult to deal with at times and caution should be used here but in general this concept has worked very well over many different elections.
The rule-of-thumb, therefore, is that the second-term president must have won the second term by a significant margin in order for the party’s next nominee to win. This again is not surprising. Normally, the populace gets a bit tired of the same party being in power so popular vote tends to be slightly lower for the follow-on candidate looking to carry the torch into a third consecutive term for the party.
Next, we will compare actual examples of the margin of victory in terms of percentage popular vote of the second-term election to the margin of victory (or loss) of the follow-on candidate. So for example, we compare how McCain did in 2008 as compared to Bush’s second-term win in 2004 (which is labeled as Bush in the following chart). Additionally, we compare Gore’s 2000 performance with Clinton’s second-term win in 1996 (which is labeled as Clinton in the following chart). By comparing the marginal difference we can more or less infer how follow-on candidates should perform in the future. Again, averages are tricky to use at times as are historical precedents but they are indicative nonetheless.
For accuracy, we split the second-term presidents into two cohorts. The first cohort is the default group with nothing exceptional occurring that would significantly modify the analysis. The second cohort is labeled ‘Special Cases’ as something unusual occurred – namely the sitting president either died in office or was forced out of office. As there seems to be more of a sympathy vote in these cases, they were separated. Ironically, they show more or less the same thing but regardless best practice is to show how they compare.
Chart 3: Decrease in Net Popular Vote from Second-Term to Party’s ‘Follow-on’ Candidate, as labeled by second-term president
For clarity, let’s go over an example. The bar labeled Bill Clinton shows a value of -8%. Clinton won his second term in 1996 by a popular vote margin of victory of 8.51%. Then, in the 2000 election, Bush won the election with a margin of -0.51% over Gore. The swing for Gore, or Clinton’s follow-on candidate, was -8%.
As you can see from the chart, every follow-on candidate of a two term president in this cohort ends up performing worse than the two-term president. This should not be a surprise as incumbent candidates normally do better than first time candidates. The average of this cohort is -12%. In other words, given historical examples, we would expect a normal follow-on candidate of a two term president to only win the election, on average, if the predecessor won by a margin of victory of 12% or more. If the predecessor won by a margin of less than 12% then we would expect, on average, the nominee of the other main party to win.
Now, looking at the ‘Special Cases’ cohort shows a slightly different story. Three of the four presidents in this cohort died in office. It is assumed that the follow-on candidate received a certain amount of sympathy vote. And, the declines after Franklin Roosevelt and Lincoln (at -3% and -5%, respectively) are well below the average of the first cohort. The follow-on of McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, shows the only increase. This could be a one-off occurrence depicting how popular Teddy Roosevelt was. The increase of 13% is exceptional. The follow-on candidate of Nixon hardly stood a chance as Nixon left the office in disgrace. The swing of -25% is the second most negative in all of the examples.
Chart 4: ‘Special Cases’, Decrease in Net Popular Vote from Second-Term to Party’s Follow-on Candidate, as labeled by second-term president
Much really depends on how you see Clinton. Does she fall more in-line with a normal follow-on candidate or should she be considered a Special Case? Either way, using this analysis based on the performance of the party’s sitting two-term president, Clinton has a sizable challenge to overcome.
Clinton is a ‘Normal’ Follow-On Candidate
If you assume that Clinton, as Obama’s follow-on candidate, is seen as a ‘normal’ candidate, she should lose the 2016 election using this specific analysis. Obama won his second term by a margin of 3.86%, which is very tight by historical standards. The fact that normally follow-on candidates do not perform as well as the two-term candidate we should discount the follow-on candidate’s chances. Using the average negative swing of the first cohort group, you could expect her to lose by something around 8% of the popular vote. Only one of the eight examples outlined in the base group shows a small enough negative swing for Clinton to win the 2016 election. And, in this case, she would win by the smallest of margins. If the negative swing is the same as any of the other seven out of eight examples, she would lose.
Clinton is a ‘Special Case’ Follow-on Candidate
There is a strong argument that Clinton is a Special Case in that she would become the first female US president. The fact that she is the follow-on candidate from the country’s first non-white president furthers this argument. She could garner a significant amount of additional votes as a Special Case candidate. Using historical examples, it would still be difficult for Clinton to win however. Taking the Nixon example out, in only one of the three remaining Special Case examples she would win – in the second she essentially ties and the other she would lose a tight race.
This analysis is fairly straightforward. No need for a lot of mental gymnastics. It is based on two centuries of actual US Presidential results and on common sense. If a sitting two-term president is very popular then the follow-on (or successor) candidate should win. If a sitting two term president barely got into office then the follow-on candidate will likely lose.
This seems like it should have been Election Analysis 101, but somehow has gotten lost in the shuffle. The take-away here should be that the Democrats and Clinton have entered 2016 with an inherent disadvantage not advantage. This has nothing to do with Clinton as an individual or even with her campaign simply that she is the nominee of the party that has been in power the last two consecutive terms. Furthermore, her predecessor did not win with a large enough margin of victory in 2012 to ensure her election. Given these historical examples, if Clinton does win she would win by the smallest of margins.
Many in the press and apparently even many within her campaign are calling for victory by a landslide. For this to occur, she would stand out as an exception in approximately two centuries of historical examples. In can happen, but it seems highly unlikely.