The 2020 election will be unprecedented, no matter what. Either President Donald Trump’s victory will shatter expectations and academic theories, or his defeat will.
If Trump wins in 2020, he will be the first and only impeached president to win reelection. Barring a major change in national polls, he will also be the first president to be elected twice without once winning the popular vote.
And if he loses? It would mark “the greatest presidential fumble of economic and market tailwinds in modern history,” according to Michael Cembalest of J.P. Morgan.
A traditional formula for predicting modern presidential elections goes like this: The national economy determines the national vote. Strong economies have historically favored the incumbent candidate or party. Weak economies, or even brief dips, have helped the challenger.
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Jimmy Carter lost in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, as economic growth fell during a period of brutal inflation.
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Ronald Reagan won reelection in 1984, after the economy bounced back.
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George H. W. Bush, Reagan’s vice president, tagged into the Oval Office in 1988, as the recovery continued.
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Bill Clinton defeated Bush in 1992, following a brief downturn. He was reelected in 1996, during the same long recovery that also narrowly delivered Al Gore the popular vote in 2000.
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George W. Bush won reelection in 2004 during a recovery.
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Barack Obama defeated the Republicans in 2008, during the Great Recession, and he won reelection, in 2012, during the subsequent recovery.
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Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016, as the economy was still expanding. (Yes, she and Gore lost their elections; more on that in a moment.)