The Economy, and Voters’ Perception of It, Are Two Very Different Things

We learned on Thursday that the United States economy expanded at a healthy rate this summer, growing 3.5 percent from July through September. This growth — as robust as it is — is unlikely, however, to influence how the president’s party fares this week at the polls. …

To understand how opinions about the economy and the actual economy might affect vote decisions in different ways, I looked for patterns of association between the real economy (growth) and election outcomes (seats in midterm years and vote share in presidential years) over the period from 1948 to 2012. CONT.

Lynn Vavreck (UCLA), New York Times

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