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FORECASTER: BUSH VICTORY IS IMMINENT: STAKING REPUTATION ON OUTCOME OF 2004 ELECTION (JACOB GERSHMAN, 8/16/04, NYSun)

When the polls close on November 2, SUNY Stony Brook professor Helmut Norpoth will be monitoring the results with the intensity of a high-stakes gambler watching cards turn over.

Mr. Norpoth recently predicted that President Bush would beat John Kerry in November with 54.7% of the popular vote.

A political scientist, a scholar of presidential elections, and researcher of public opinion, Mr. Norpoth says he’s not guessing. He is a member of a cadre of academics who have staked their professional reputation on the outcome of the 2004 race. [...]

Mr. Norpoth’s model rests on the idea that primary election results matter. “Yogi Berra might have said it: the best predictor of an election is, well, an election,” he wrote in an upcoming article in the journal PS: Political Science & Politics.

Essentially, he argues that the more competitive the primary race is for the incumbent party, the worse the winning nominees will do in the general election.

His model would have predicted a loss for George H. W. Bush, who faced a tough primary challenge from Pat Buchanan in 1992. Bill Clinton did not face serious opposition in the 1996 Democratic primaries and then soundly defeated Bob Dole.

Mr. Norpoth said his model picks the winner of the popular vote in every election from 1912 to 2000 except for in 1960, when Kennedy beat Nixon by a little more than 100,000 votes.

And fair counts in IL and TX might have given Nixon the election in '60.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 16, 2004 9:21 AM