Looking for clues as to who will win this presidential election? Some study polls, others prediction markets, maybe even horoscopes. But here’s another way: I took a look at past presidential elections. If that past is prologue, former President Donald Trump is the slight favorite.
In U.S. history, there have been 59 presidential elections. That is enough of a data set to enable some pattern recognition.
So, let’s identify three categories of patterns:
First, a presidential election in which there is no elected incumbent seeking an additional term. That is the case now, since President Joe Biden announced that he would not be seeking re-election, giving way to Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee. For her part, Harris was elected in 2020, but not as president. So, 2024 is an “open seat” election.
There have been 26 of these elections. (Not counting the first one, in 1789, which elected George Washington to the newly created office. So, yes, we are actually only examining 58 presidential elections.) Of these hold-the-open-seat bids, the incumbent party won 12 and lost 14.
>We can observe there is a logic here: Any time the incumbent party makes a shift, from one candidate to another, there is a chance for a bobble — something that shakes the voters as the transfer is made. For instance, this year, there is the that Biden was pushed out by a behind-the-curtain power play. True or not, this sort of palace intrigue turns off some voters who might think, for example, that Biden was robbed.
So, this open-seat subset is slightly positive for Trump; past candidates in his shoes — challenging the incumbent party for an open seat — are batting 14 for 26.
Yet for an overall perspective, let’s take look at the other two categories — because as we shall see, Harris’ status could change.
The second category is elected presidents seeking re-election. Of these 27 contests, the track record is 18 wins and nine losses. Here, too, there is underlying logic: If the voters chose to invest their hopes in a president, it is only natural that they will be at least somewhat hesitant to cancel their investment in the next balloting.
Usually — two-thirds of the time, in fact — the incumbent’s pitch of “give me four more years to finish the job,” sells with the voters.
The third category is the smallest: An election when there is an incumbent president who was not elected president. This has mostly happened when a commander-in-chief dies in office; the vice president succeeds him and runs in the next election. Of the five elections in this category, the incumbent won four and lost just one. The logic: The vice president, now president, needs to carry on the fallen president’s work.
For instance, in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson sailed to his own full term in part because voters admired LBJ’s pledge to honor the legacy of the martyred President John F. Kennedy.
So, does this suggest Harris would benefit if Biden were to resign and let her become president? There is a hink.
You see, there has been a grand total of one presidential election in which the incumbent president succeeded to the office by the resignation, as opposed to the death, of the predecessor. That was the case of Vice President Gerald Ford, who succeeded President Richard Nixon in 1974, ran in 1976 — and lost.
So, if Biden does resign — and there is no indication that he intends to — he would be handing over the presidency to Harris on terms at least somewhat akin to the way Nixon handed it to Ford, not the way the fallen JFK passed the torch to LBJ.
We all know Joe Biden. He’s no John Kennedy. Sorry, Vice President Harris.
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America
