Dr. Alfred G. Cuzán

Is the Electoral College an integral part of the U.S. federal system and hence worth preserving? Or is it a relic from the past that needs to be revised or abolished altogether to bring it into closer alignment with the national popular vote?
Join us as UWF professors from the Reubin O’D. Askew Department of Government debate this question. Learn more about the pros and cons of this unique American institution.

Historically, statistical models for forecasting the outcome of midterm elections to the United States House of Representatives have not been particularly successful (Jones and Cuzán 2006). However, in what may have been a breakthrough, in 2006 most models called it correctly (Cuzán 2007). However, in
what may have been a breakthrough, most models correctly predicted that the Democrats would re-emerge as the majority party in 2006 (Cuzán 2007). One successful model was estimated using 46 elections, beginning with 1914 (only the second time that 435 representatives, the present number, were elected). The model was relatively simple, making use of national-level variables only (Cuzán and Bundrick 2006). Using a similar model, I generated a forecast for the 2010 midterm election.

Extending a previous study, we use DEA methodology to estimate and rank the relative efficiency of presidents at converting fiscal, economic, and political variables at the end-of-term election into votes for themselves or their party’s candidate. Thirty-two administrations spanning the period 1880-2008 are compared. The analysis yields several efficient presidents from each party, and identifies a number of vote-getting champions. Future presidents or their advisors would do well to study these exemplars for clues on how to extract the most votes out of comparable situations.

Alone among presidential elections models, the fiscal model includes a measure of federal spending policy as one of its predictor variables. The model, the first version of which was published more than two decades ago (Cuzán and Heggen 1984), made its debut as a tool of real time (i.e., ex ante) forecasting in 2004, its August forecast coming within 0.1% of the actual share of the two-party vote going to the incumbents. That was one of the best showings that year (Campbell, 2005; Cuzán and Bundrick 2004, 2005).
In this paper we do three things. First, we present a theoretical justification for the fiscal model and address three common objections to the reasoning behind it. To avoid interrupting the presentation, however, we place the objections and our replies in Appendix I. Second, we compare the structure and performance of the fiscal model with those of three better known presidential elections forecasting models, to wit: Abramowitz’s time-for-change model, Campbell’s trial-heat model, and Fair’s presidential vote equation. We show that the fiscal model performs as well or better than those three and, furthermore, that fiscal policy appears to be an implicit factor in both Abramowitz’s and Campbell’s models. Finally, we conclude with a tentative forecast of the Republican share of the two-party vote in the next presidential election.

Using DEA methodology, we estimate and rank the relative efficiency of presidents at converting fiscal, economic, and political variables at the end-of-term election into votes for themselves or their party’s candidate. Thirty administrations spanning the period 1880-2000 are compared. The analysis yields several efficient presidents from each party. On the basis of these findings, we offer recommendations to students of the presidency, including would-be aspirants to the office and their advisors.