Fasten Your Seat Belts: Polarization, Weak Economy Forecast Very Close Election

… The estimates for the revised model indicate that in the current era of partisan polarization, the advantage enjoyed by a first-term incumbent is less than half of what it was earlier — about 2.5 percentage points instead of 5.2 percentage points. This is not only a statistically significant difference; it is also a substantively significant difference. Specifically, it means that President Obama is likely to have a much tougher fight to win a second term. [cont.]

Alan I. Abramowitz, Emory University