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An Incumbent's Guide to Reelection: The States and Economic Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Smith, Kyle |
| Copyright Year | 2008 |
| Abstract | This study has two chapters. The first uses Ray Fair 's national economic voting model of U.S. presidential elections to pose and answer specific questions about how voting theory works in practice. The results suggest that economic activity in the year of an election is the primary determinant of voters ' perceptions of presidential performance on the economy, while earlier years in the administration 's term are not important. Also , voters hold the incumbent party responsible for economic conditions whether or not that party controls Congress. Finally, the results suggest that economic voting generally operates symmetrically a fall in growth affects the vote as much as an increase in growth does. In the second chapter, a pooled, cross-sectional forecasting model is developed to explain state vote shares in presidential elections from 1972 through 2004. The model takes into account state and national economic conditions and election year political variables. It also controls for states' partisan predispositions in order to produce a forecast using data available prior to the election. The model correctly predicts 88 percent of state results and has an average error of 2.9 percentage points of the state vote. Acknowledgments I would like extend special thanks to Professor Dave Findlay, my thesis advisor, and Professor Reid, the reader for this project. Without their support, econometric advice (and political speculation), this project would not have been possible. All remaining errors are solely mine. I also received support from other faculty members. In the Economics Department, Professor Michael Donihue taught me many of the techniques that I used to complete this project. This was obviously an interdisciplinary project, and I also appreciate the advice I received from Professor Cal Mackenzie and Professor Sandy Maisel of the Government Department, whose suggestions have been perhaps more important than they realize . |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1639&context=honorstheses |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
