Quote:
Originally Posted by Nichlemn
You do realise that a) the first chart suggests a strong but not perfect correlation between approval rating and re-election margin (hence there are other factors other than "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" and b) the second chart implies that even with a ~40% approval rating, the incumbent still has a non-negligible chance of winning re-election.
If you actually read the article's text:
Hi Nich,
Don't blame the messenger. First I didn't say anything about predicting election margin. There seems to be a perfect 12 for 12 correlation (for some reason FDR's1944 election isn't in the data although he had a 70% rating in 1944) with an incumbent's favorables and his re-election prospects. I'm not a statistician but I don't see how 12 for 12 isn't significant.
Cliffs: NO incumbent below 49% has ever won and no incumbent above 50% has ever lost. Could an incumbent win with a 48-47% approval, yeah probably, but the farther he drops below 50% the more difficult his task becomes.
And , of course, it goes without saying that Nate is a big lib, so he puts the best face on horrid data for his team. Totally standard, but he has the intellectual chops to present the data, which doesn't lie.