Economic Expectations and Election Outcomes: The Presidency and the House in 2012

Do our models of political behavior bear any resemblance to reality? Forecasting elections is one opportunity to assess whether our models of voting behavior are accurate. Over the past few decades, political scientists have been willing to put themselves out there to forecast elections. Explaining a past event allows us the ability to retrofit our models before we make them available to the broader community. In short, forecasting elections provides us the opportunity to develop humility. The forecasting community has done a reasonable job over the past few elections. Aside from 2000, forecasters have been largely accurate. Even in 2000, the forecasting community can claim a modest victory. The community was right about the popular vote winner; it just happened that the popular vote winner lost the election that counts—the Electoral College.