Oxford Economics Predicts Trump Win Even if There's a Recession

The general assumption, according to most election models that show President Donald Trump winning re-election, has been that it all goes out the window if there’s a recession.

Trump’s fate is tied to the economy, after all, and once that comes tumbling down, the president is done for.

Not so fast, say the folks at Oxford Economics. The forecasting and quantitative analysis firm says that, barring massive economic upheaval, the president will likely win a second term in office.

According to Bloomberg, Oxford is the most sanguine of the forecasting firms whose work they examined, at least if you’re a Trump supporter. Ray Fair of Yale and Moody’s Analytics both see Trump winning — if the status quo is maintained economically, that is.

Oxford Economics went further. According to an October report, the firm thinks that even a recession wouldn’t hurt Trump that much.

“Analysts at the firm see a 5-point win for Trump in the popular vote, even in the case of a recession, thanks to low unemployment, weak inflation, and relatively stable income gains,” Bloomberg reported.

“Their model accurately predicted the popular vote in 16 of the last 18 elections, going back to 1948. They missed Richard Nixon winning in 1968 and Jimmy Carter in 1976.”

The only way that economic contraction could kill the Trump re-election campaign would be if it were severe, Oxford Economics said.

It would, however, require “rising tariffs, lower corporate profits, and a stock market downturn,” Bloomberg reported.

The extent of such a recession would also require unemployment to rise from 3.6 percent to 6.4 percent, incomes to fall and inflation to be almost nil. Even then, they said, Trump would only lose by a small margin.

We’ve previously reported on the Moody’s Analytics prediction; they believe a recession would derail the president but not by that much.

Three separate analyses show him winning with between 289 and 332 electoral votes, provided the economy holds. Fair, meanwhile, sees Trump winning by 4 percentage points in the popular vote, but again with a booming economy.

And, just a reminder, this is merely an economic analysis. There are plenty of other issues which may play into Trump’s re-election.

“We stress that non-economic factors are likely to play an outsize role in this election, including policy and political developments (such as the impeachment inquiry) as well as factors like race, gender and ‘likability,'” Gregory Daco and James Watson, economists with Oxford Economics, wrote in their report.

And, as Fox News/Fox Business pundit Charles Payne noted in the video above, the economic metrics are actually looking pretty good thus far. Even if there were some sort of dip, the numbers would still be much higher than where the president started.

Bloomberg’s numbers seemed to concur with this view.

“The economy expanded at a 1.9% pace in the third quarter and unemployment is close to its lowest in a half-century, government data showed last week. While manufacturing has been hurt by the U.S.-China trade war, consumers continue to spend in a sign voters are still confident about the economy. A Bloomberg Economics model sees the chances of an election-year recession at just 27%,” the article read.

And while some national polls haven’t been looking great for Trump as of late, a new survey showed that he’s polling well in swing states against Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and is competitive against former Vice President Joe Biden in those states.

Yet, according to the echo chamber, there’s no chance that Trump will get re-elected. You know, the same way most establishment media pundits thought there was no way he would ever get elected in the first place.

Talking down the economy won’t work, either — at least, not if this latest polling data is accurate.

In short, this was another media lie that ended up getting exposed.

They haven’t been able to imbue America with the sense of a recession yet and they haven’t been able to diminish Trump’s performance in swing states.

That’s why 2020 isn’t exactly looking great for Democrats.