Models Based on 'Fundamentals' Have Failed at Predicting Presidential Elections

Nate Silver says Models Based on 'Fundamentals' Have Failed at Predicting Presidential Elections.

"I do not mean to suggest that the economy does not matter to elections, or that there is no predictive content in looking at economic variables. As this experiment should show you, the economy assuredly does not account for 90 percent of voting results. But it may well account for half of them. That doesn’t mean these effects are easy to quantify, but you can probably get somewhere — perhaps explaining about 40 percent of election results — by using more sensible techniques. That’s still enough to give a huge tailwind to an incumbent running in a good economy, and represents a big problem for a candidate running into a recession."