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Alfred Cuzán
Randall Jones


On Ray Fair's 4-29-04 Forecast
by Alfred G. Cuzán
On April 29, Ray Fair posted an update of his 2004 forecast for Bush's share of the two-party vote. This forecast, an outlier in Polly's Table, is even more optimistic about the President's reelection prospects than the one issued in February. Since then, there has been an up-tick in both the expected GROWTH and INFLATION rates through the third quarter of the year. The net effect is to raise the forecast for President Bush's share of the two-party vote, from 58.58 percent to between 58.74 and 60.4, or to an average of 60 percent (after rounding). The reason for the spread is that one of the recent quarters was only one-tenth of a point below what is considered a GOODNEWS quarter. If it is placed in the GOODNEWS category, this would add another 0.84 percent to the point prediction. Fair sums up his latest forecast thus, "The main message that the equation has been making from the beginning is thus not changed, namely that President Bush is predicted to win by a sizable margin." Actually, this is an understatement: Fair is forecasting nothing less than a landslide victory for President Bush, a reelection margin exceeded only by FDR in 1936, LBJ in 1964, and Richard Nixon in 1972.

this is up from his feb prediction of a 52-48 bush win. he has been very accurate in the past. his modeling would have predicted 27 of 33 elections.

It will most likely be a close election but Bush will win. If there is another attack here, his reelection is almost a given, unlike Spain. I think people will vote the other way compared to there. They will want someone in office who knows the ropes during a crisis, not someone who needs to 'learn on the fly'.

very true