Gallup has found useful relationships between incumbent re-election and other measures of the nation’s mood, namely Americans satisfaction with the direction of the country and their degree of concern with the national economy. However, both metrics have less predictive value in non-incumbent years.
Data on the “country’s direction” question are not available for 1960 and 1968. However, the readings in 1988, 2000 and 2008 indicate that, as is the case with a president’s job approval rating, U.S. satisfaction is not destiny for the president’s party. While extremely low public satisfaction with the country’s direction in October 2008 (9%) may have doomed the Republican presidential nominee, extraordinarily high satisfaction in 2000 (63%) did not ensure a Democratic win. Only in 1988 did high satisfaction correspond with the sitting president’s party retaining the White House. Today’s 27% U.S. satisfaction rating is on the low side, but not nearly as low as in 2008.
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