A sudden economic downturn in the second quarter of the year could doom President Trump’s chances of reelection in the fall, according to a new election forecast that factors in the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
White House officials are warning of a steep economic shock, with unemployment even hitting 20%, as COVID-19 cuts through the workforce and employees stay at home.
Trump aides are briefing that the economy can bounce back before November, but many economists believe second-quarter GDP growth is the factor most closely correlated with an incumbent president’s reelection hopes.
In a new forecast, Alan Abramowitz, professor of political science at Emory University, writes that Trump could be heading for a defeat of “landslide proportions.”
He cites projections suggesting a 5% contraction in the American economy during the next three months.
“That’s significant because, in many election forecasting models, including my own ‘time for change’ model, economic growth in the second quarter is a key predictor of the election results,” he writes for Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecaster at the University of Virginia.
“Models like mine use second-quarter GDP growth to measure the state of the economy because GDP is a broad measure of economic activity and the performance of the economy in the second quarter seems to shape opinions of the economy in the fall.”
His model correctly correlates with the winner of the past 11 elections.
However, he added that voters may not hold the president responsible for an emerging pathogen and that partisan polarization may insulate Trump more than previous incumbents.
The forecast was published soon after bookmakers and a ratings agency adjusted their own predictions to suggest that Joe Biden, the likely Democratic nominee, is running at least neck and neck with Trump.
White House officials have begun preparing the public for a tough economic ride.
“There’s a lot we don’t know,” Larry Kudlow, Trump’s chief economic adviser, told reporters on Monday. “The first quarter’s going to be fine. It’s the second quarter — I understand that — it’s going to be a very difficult quarter.”
And this week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned Republican senators that unemployment could hit 20% without urgent action to pass a trillion-dollar stimulus package.
A Trump campaign adviser said he hoped the pain would be short-lived, echoing Trump’s message that the economy would rebound due to “pent up demand.”
“By the time we get to the election, then we think things could look a lot brighter,” he said, “as voters book holidays they postponed and get back to spending money.”
However, economists say the historical precedents bode poorly for the president.
Since World War II, only two presidents have run for reelection in the same year as a recession. Jimmy Carter lost in 1980, after a six-month recession began that January, while Harry Truman won in 1948, during the same month the recession began.
But the best case study may be George H.W. Bush, who lost in 1992. The country had emerged from recession but not soon enough for voters to feel the benefits, said political analyst Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
“Even if things start to improve in the third quarter before an election, people may not recognize that until it is already happening. People’s feelings about the economy can be baked in several months in advance,” he said.
“The danger for this president is that the public’s perception has been of a pretty strong economy, and arguably, this disruption is happening at a pretty bad time politically for him.”
