Democratic Defeat: Median Voter Model, Not Retrospective Voting

Rule of Acquisition #285.

And I'd say that poor economic performance created the *necessary condition* for a Democrat-out-kicking, even if it isn't a cause.

Now, according to you, what caused Republican losses in 1982, 2006, and 2008?

It does? What about the Intrade data gives you insight into the motivations of voters? How are you accessing their minds and discerning their reasons for voting?

How much hat will you eat when it turns out that the entire thing is predicted almost entirely by party affiliation?

The Intrade market was just reporting generic ballot trends; nothing else. The Intrade market had bigger swings because a few points up or down translates into huge changes in a candidate's chances of winning. Other than that, the two track almost exactly. That's not very useful. Thanks for the investment advice.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/13/10-us-house-genballot_n_726397.html

Of course Democrats were punished for being to the left of public opinion. The question is whether public opinion is affected by economic conditions. Public opinion has moved right over the past two years not only on size of government/tax issues but on everything from abortion to global warming. If it hadn't done so, Democrats would have done a lot better last night.

[Link changed to permanent link.--Econlib Ed.]

This argument is unconvincing because it fails to clearly distinguish between news about the economy and news about the health care bill and to specify a plausible lag (if any) in forming of expectations. The expected state of November, 2010's economy probably got worse over the entire period; the health care bill's chances of passing were clearly above zero as soon as Obama was elected. If the market were very efficient and if Bryan's argument were correct we would see a very steep drop in the price of the Intrade Demo House contract (HOUSE.DEM.2010) as soon as the news that the bill would pass becomes convincing. However the price of the relevant contract on House control is higher on June 21, 2010 than it was on March 21, 2010 when the bill passed.

Thus, I doubt that Bryan's conjecture could be proved by a careful review of the evidence. At the same time, I don't think the evidence of Intrade is all that strong the other way.

If it's the economy, why did the Democrats do relatively well in terrible-economy states like Nevada and California, but terrible in relatively low unemployment, good-economy states like North and South Dakota and Texas?

There are other differences between those states besides unemployment. Nevade and California traditionally lean Democratic while North and South Dakota and Texas traditionally lean Republican. They still lost votes in all five states. It is possible it was just that the swing was larger in the conservative states.

Another possibility is that it's because the outcome was primarily determined by people who were employed or retired and fairly unaffected by the recession. Such individuals are more likely to consider the unemployment situation from a national perspective which they may be more familiar with than from a local perspective which they may be less familiar with.

I also wonder if the high unemployment states were recovering faster than the low unemployment states.