On today’s client call discussing the upcoming presidential election, Hedgeye Director of Research Daryl Jones focused on the role economic data will play with regard to each candidate. Current battleground state polls show Obama ahead in every state save for North Carolina and no Republican has ever won an election without winning Ohio, which is cause for concern for the Romney camp. But the caveat to state polling data could be economic studies which tell a different tale.
Two University of Colorado professors, one from Boulder and one from Denver, have put together an
Electoral College forecast model to predict who will win the 2012 presidential election and the result is
bad news for Barack Obama. The model, which uses economic indicators from all 50 states, shows 320 electoral votes for Romney and 218 for Obama, pointing to a Mitt Romney victory in 2012.
This kind of Electoral College model developed by the team of Bickers and Berry is the only one of its kind to include more than one state-level measure of economic conditions -- both national unemployment rates as well as per capita income. We are of the opinion that this election is too close to call; if you go with state polling, it’s a win for Obama. Those who agree with Bickers and Berry see Romney winning in November.
