Consider the Evidence

Barack Obama is ahead of Hillary Clinton in the (regular) delegate count, and it looks almost certain that he will remain so when all of the primaries and caucuses are completed. Still, the gap is not large, and it is possible that Clinton will end up with the most popular votes. Rightly or wrongly, it appears that some — perhaps many — of the as-yet-uncommitted Democratic superdelegates intend to take electability into account in deciding which candidate to support (see here, here, and here).

What information should they consider in making a decision?

Partisans and pundits have suggested a number of reasons why one might stand a better chance than the other of defeating John McCain in the general election. Clinton is more strongly despised by conservatives and thus may generate larger Republican turnout. On the other hand, she appears to have stronger support among working-class voters, women, and Latinos, whereas Obama is stronger among professionals and African Americans. If the latter groups are more likely than the former to vote Democratic regardless of who is the nominee, this is an advantage for Clinton. Obama seems more likely to inspire independents, but Clinton may be better prepared to effectively confront Republican attacks. I’m not convinced that these considerations clearly favor one or the other.

National polls pitting Obama or Clinton vs. McCain are another potential source of information. They often show little difference between the two, but it’s too early for them to be of much use.

If I were a superdelegate trying to assess electability, I’d be inclined to focus on which candidate is most likely to win states that are not solidly “blue” or “red.”

The following chart shows the 24 states in which the popular vote in the 2000 and/or 2004 presidential election was within 10 percentage points. The numbers in parentheses indicate the 2000 and 2004 vote results. A plus sign means the Democratic candidate (Gore, Kerry) won the state; a minus sign means Bush won it. The states are ordered by the number of electoral votes they’ll have in the 2008 general election. The markers (”Ob” and “Cl”) indicate the winner of the state’s primary or caucus.

Consider first the 20 states at the bottom. Together they have 159 electoral votes. All but one have had their primary or caucus already. Of them, Obama has won states that have total of 98 electoral votes, and Clinton has won states with a total of 56 electoral votes. (West Virginia, with 5, holds its primary in May.) These results favor Obama.

One can argue that perhaps some of these states aren’t truly in play. New Jersey seems likely to go Democratic regardless of who is the nominee, and so too do Hawaii, Maine, and New Hampshire. Similarly, neither Obama nor Clinton is likely to win Tennessee or West Virginia. As best I can tell, though, subtracting these types of states would not change the picture much.

What could change it significantly is if all of the “big four” states — Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan — go for Clinton. These states have 85 electoral votes between them. They decided the 2000 and 2004 elections, and might well do so again this time. If Clinton were to win these four states, she’d have won in-play states with a total of 141 electoral votes, versus 98 for Obama. Though primary results don’t automatically translate into general election performance (see this and this), this would give her a case for claiming greater electability. Otherwise, it seems to me that electability either is a draw or favors Obama.

Clinton won Ohio. Pennsylvania holds its primary April 22nd. If I were a superdelegate concerned about electability, I would want a true primary result from Florida and Michigan.

Addendum:  Jeff Weintraub has some sensible thoughts on what the Democrats should do about Florida and Michigan.

Doug Hibbs has posted an analysis of the implications of his “bread and peace” model for the 2008 presidential election. My earlier, considerably less thorough discussion is here. See also summary and comments by Mark Thoma and Andrew Gelman.

Which political party is better at improving living standards?

A commonplace view is that Democrats favor policies that boost the well-being of the poor while Republicans’ policy preferences are more conducive to economic growth and rising incomes. Debates about high vs. low taxes, generous vs. stingy social programs, and heavy vs. light regulation of business often are framed in terms of a tradeoff between compassion and growth. Should government do more to assist the poor? Or should it intervene less, thereby helping the economy to grow more rapidly?

For the most part this debate is a battle of rhetoric and assumptions. Many on the right assume that lower taxes, less regulation, and less generous social policies must be good for economic growth. Some on the left accept this assumption but argue that growth will fail to trickle down to the poor. Others dispute the assumption.

Evidence can help. There is a great deal of it that is potentially relevant. Here is one piece. Using tax records and surveys, the Congressional Budget Office has compiled good data on household incomes from 1979 through 2005 (here). The presidency was held by a Republican from 1981 to 1992, by a Democrat from 1993 to 2000, and by a Republican since 2000. The following chart shows average rates of income growth (adjusted for inflation and with taxes subtracted) for each of the five quintiles (fifths) of households during these three periods.

Income growth for each of these groups, from the poorest to the middle to the richest, has been faster during Democratic administrations than Republican ones.

Does this prove that Democrats are more effective than Republicans at promoting income growth? No. A government’s ability to affect income growth is limited, Democrats controlled one or both houses of Congress during Republican presidencies and vice-versa, and each of these periods has idiosyncratic features (see here, here, and here, for instance). Still, the data offer reason for skepticism about the notion that policies favored by the right are better at raising living standards.

Nor is this peculiar to the American context. Here is a counterpart chart showing income growth in the United Kingdom over the same period. The Conservative party held the government from 1979 to 1997; the Labour party has held it since. The data are from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (here).

Incomes of the richest fifth increased slightly more rapidly during the years of Conservative government, but most British households have fared as well or better under (New) Labour.

Douglas Hibbs’ “bread and peace” model has been extremely effective at predicting the outcomes of U.S. presidential elections. This chart, covering elections from 1952 to 2004, gives you the gist:

On the vertical axis is the incumbent-party candidate’s share of the two-party vote. On the horizontal axis is the growth rate of per capita real disposable personal income (DPI) over the three and a half years leading up to the election. The growth rate is adjusted so that more recent periods (quarters) are weighted more heavily. Income growth — “bread” — is a strikingly good predictor of the vote outcome.

There are two main exceptions: 1952 and 1968. (These aren’t included in calculating the regression line in the chart.) This is where the “peace” component of the model comes in. In those two years the incumbent (Democratic) party suffered from a large number of American casualties in a war for which it was viewed as responsible — Korea in 1952 and Vietnam in 1968. Those two wars were still relevant in the ensuing elections, in 1956 and 1972, but the incumbent (Republican) party didn’t suffer much because it hadn’t started the wars.

In analyses in a 2000 article and a recent update (here; hat tip to Andrew Gelman), Hibbs finds that other factors neither add to the explanatory utility of the bread and peace model nor reduce the estimated impact of income growth and war casualties.

What does the model predict for the 2008 election? It’s early yet, but nevertheless interesting to take a look. Through the end of 2007, Hibbs’ weighted income growth rate measure is 1.4% (my calculation). If that continues and “bread” dominates, as it has in most prior elections, the model projects a victory for the Republican candidate. The next chart shows this as “2008a.”

Surprised? Many citizens and pundits expect a Democratic victory. And seemingly with good reason. The current Republican president is extremely unpopular, the Democrats did very well in the 2006 mid-term elections, Democratic voters appear to be more energized than their Republican counterparts, and the two issues voters say are most important to them, the economy and the Iraq war, seem likely to favor the Democratic candidate. Still, some recent polls (such as this and this and this) suggest a Republican nominee might well defeat either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the general election.

Lots of things could result in a Democrat winning in November. In the context of the Hibbs model there are three relevant scenarios.

1. The 2008 election is an exception. In politics there are no immutable laws. Even if average income growth and war casualties have been and continue to be key factors in presidential elections, they might not determine the outcome of this one.
2. Like in 1952 and 1968, the incumbent party is hurt by American casualties in a war it initiated. As a result, its candidate receives less than 50% of the two-party vote despite relatively rapid income growth. This is shown in the chart as “2008b.” Hibbs reports that approximately 29,000 Americans had been killed in Korea at the time of the 1952 election, and almost exactly the same number had died in Vietnam by November of 1968. As of February 2008 nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed in the Iraq war. That’s far fewer than in 1952 or 1968, but the public’s tolerance threshold may be considerably lower now (see here, for instance).
3. Income growth slows in 2008. That would reduce the predicted vote share of the incumbent-party (Republican) candidate, especially since growth in recent periods is weighted more heavily in the model. This is shown as “2008c” in the chart. At the moment, with the economy teetering on the brink of recession, a slowing of income growth appears extremely likely.

Another possibility is that the model no longer works well. You can see in the first chart above that 1996 and 2000 are not predicted very well by income growth, and unlike 1952 and 1968 they cannot be explained by war casualties. The model predicts 2004 accurately, but perhaps that is a fluke, due to fear of terrorism and the incumbent president’s at-that-time seemingly successful prosecution of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Why might the model no longer work well? One hypothesis is that as a society gets richer, pocketbook issues recede in importance for voters.

A second consideration is that growth of per capita personal income is no longer a useful indicator of how voters have fared economically. In recent decades the bulk of income gains have gone to a small slice of the population — those at the top of the distribution. Measuring growth via an average misses this. The next chart illustrates the point. From the late 1940s through the mid-1970s per capita (i.e., average) DPI and median family income both increased steadily. Since the mid-seventies per capita income has continued to do so, but median family income has been relatively flat.

If the model’s effectiveness has indeed declined, other factors may matter more in 2008 than they have in the past. Which factors? And with what outcome? Your guess is probably as good as mine.

The Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University has begun publication of Pathways: A Magazine on Poverty, Inequality, and Social Policy. The full contents are available here. The inaugural issue includes, among other interesting articles, brief but substantive statements by Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama on their proposed strategies for reducing poverty.

Particularly helpful is a piece by Rebecca Blank assessing the three candidates’ proposals. Blank is one of the country’s most careful and sensible analysts of poverty and social policy. Her conclusion:

“Obama, Edwards, and Clinton all have multifaceted and serious anti-poverty plans. Anyone concerned with poverty issues could happily vote for any of them. Edwards has made poverty a centerpiece issue for his campaign from the beginning; Clinton has the best early childhood proposals; Obama is the most thoughtful on jobs for disadvantaged youth and urban change and (for my money) the most creative in putting new policy ideas on the table, such as low-cost Internet service in poor neighborhoods.”

She also emphasizes that while each of the three favors multiple worthy policies,

“it is hard to tell how they would prioritize their current list of proposals. Presidents face limited resources and hard choices once they actually enter the White House and have to decide where to place their political chips.”

Read the full piece to see Blank’s own priority list.

The notion that the Democrats’ electoral troubles since the 1960s are mainly a function of southern whites turning Republican is quickly becoming conventional wisdom. Thomas Schaller offers a version of this story in his book Whistling Past Dixie. In an article titled “What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas?“, Larry Bartels concludes that the entire Democrat-to-Republican shift in presidential voting among working-class whites occurred in the south. Paul Krugman embraces Bartels’ findings in The Conscience of a Liberal. Here’s how Krugman puts it:

“The overwhelming importance of the Southern switch suggests an almost embarrassingly simple story about the political success of movement conservatism. It goes like this: Thanks to their organization … movement conservatives were able to take over the Republican party, and move its policies sharply to the right. In most of the country this rightward shift alienated voters, who gradually moved toward the Democrats. But Republicans were nevertheless able to win presidential elections, and eventually gain control of Congress, because they were able to exploit the race issue to win political dominance of the South.” (p. 182)

This view of developments contains an important truth: Southern whites were heavily Democratic until the mid-sixties. Now they are less so, and today the south is the easily the most Republican region of the country.

Yet the notion that the defection of whites, especially working-class whites, from the Democrats has been largely confined to the south paints too simple a portrait. Since 1972 the General Social Survey has asked American adults about their “party identification,” along with a battery of other questions. People’s political preferences ultimately matter to the extent they influence actual voting choices. But analyzing presidential voting alone, as Bartels does, can miss part of the story. Presidential voting is heavily influenced by the particular candidates the two parties nominate. Arguably, people’s underlying preferences and beliefs are better understood by looking at their party identification. The following chart shows the share of working-class whites identifying as strong-Democrat, moderately-strong-Democrat, or independent-leaning-Democrat since the early 1970s.

The country is split here into three regions: the south, the midwest and plains states, and the east and west coasts. In the south, identification with the Democrats fell roughly 20 percentage points — from 60% to 40% — between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s and has held steady since then. This is consistent with the picture offered by Bartels and Krugman.

Yet the same thing happened in the other two regions — even on the coasts, where the most solidly “blue” states are located.

With several graduate students at the University of Arizona, I have been examining this development (“The Democrats and Working-Class Whites”). It turns out not to be a function of our measure of party identification or of the working class. Nor is it specific to men or to the most religious. And most of those who left the Democrats didn’t become “independents.” In fact, since the early 1990s approximately 40% of working-class whites have identified as Republican — the same as the share that identifies as Democrat.

What caused this development? We conclude that it was due in large part to the crisis of the late 1970s. The economy fell apart under a Democratic president and Democrat-controlled Congress, leading many in the working class to question whether the party was still the better of the two at securing their material well-being. Ronald Reagan offered a simple and seemingly plausible solution — less government — which also tapped into desire for tax relief. The Democrats’ economic woes were compounded by the twin foreign policy disasters of 1979 (the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis), rising crime, forced busing, and affirmative action.

The deep recession of the early 1980s brought a temporary halt to the white working-class defection. But as the economy recovered in the mid-to-late eighties, as Reagan’s actual policy shifts proved less radical than his rhetoric, and as the Soviet bloc crumbled beginning in 1989, the defection resumed.

As the chart above reveals, little has changed since the early 1990s. This is puzzling. After all, Republican presidents presided over the two most recent economic recessions (early 1990s and early 2000s), and far and away the healthiest economic period for workers in the past generation was the Clinton years of the late nineties. We find, consistent with Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? argument, that this is due partly to heightened importance of social issues such as homosexuality and abortion to working-class whites. Another key factor is that the cohort of working-class whites who turned 20 since the mid-1970s, when the defection from the Democrats began, has always been less pro-Democrat. They have been gradually replacing the much more pro-Democrat cohort that came of age during the Roosevelt and Truman years.

This does not mean Democrats don’t, or won’t, win elections. They still get the votes of many working-class whites. And as John Judis and Ruy Teixeira ably document in The Emerging Democratic Majority, they now tend to win a sizable majority of the votes of urban professionals, as well as African Americans, Latinos, and women.

But regaining the consistent support of a majority of working-class whites would certainly help. Depending on the definition, this group constitutes roughly a third to half of the voting-age population.