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This article presents forecasts of the 2012 presidential and US House of
Representatives elections. The presidential forecasts are of the national two-party
presidential vote percentage for the in-party candidate and are based on the
trial-heat and economy forecasting equation and its companion convention-bump
equation. The House election forecast is of the net seat change for the Democratic
Party from 2010 to 2012. This forecast is produced from two versions of a
seats-in-trouble forecasting equation.

Have Democratic presidents since World War II had economic records that were superior to those of their Republican counterparts? In a previous study, I reported findings that there were no significant differences between the economic records of the presidential parties once the conditions of the economy they inherited from their predecessor were taken into account. Comiskey and Marsh challenged this finding with an analysis that controlled for business cycle effects. This article reexamines the issue and Comiskey and Marsh's analysis. The reexamination reaffirms my earlier findings that the presidential parties have not significantly differed in their economic records once the effects of inherited economic conditions are taken into account.

This article examines the influences on the 2012 presidential election that led to the closely decided re-election of Barack Obama. Partisan parity, ideological polarization, a hyper-competitive campaign, and approval ratings for the incumbent, plus pre-convention preference polls that were evenly split, were strong signs that the 2012 presidential election would be close. The economic record of the Obama presidency, however, favored the election of Republican challenger Mitt Romney. On the other hand, President Obama had the advantages of a first party-term incumbent, and this first party-term advantage was the major reason for President Obama's reelection. As a first party-term president, fewer voters blamed President Obama for the nation's economic problems than blamed his predecessor. Of the 12 first party-term incumbent presidents to seek reelection since 1900, 11 won and only one lost. The election of a new presidential party is tantamount to electing a president to an 8-year term. Adapted from the source document.

Several studies of the post-war American political economy find that Democratic presidents have been more successful than Republicans. Most recently, Bartels (2008) found that economic growth had been greater and that unemployment and income inequality had been lower under Democratic presidents since 1948. If true, these findings combined with the frequent success of Republicans in presidential elections pose a challenge to theories of retrospective voting and responsible party government. This reexamination of these findings indicates that they are an artifact of specification error. Previous estimates did not properly take into account the lagged effects of the economy. Once lagged economic effects are taken into account, party differences in economic performance are shown to be the effects of economic conditions inherited from the previous president and not the consequence of real policy differences. Specifically, the economy was in recession when Republican presidents became responsible for the economy in each of the four post-1948 transitions from Democratic to Republican presidents. This was not the case for the transitions from Republicans to Democrats. When economic conditions leading into a year are taken into account, there are no presidential party differences with respect to growth, unemployment, or income inequality.

The "Seats in Trouble" forecasting model predicted in mid-August that Republicans would gain a landslide number of seats in the 2010 elections to the U.S. House of Representatives, and that this number would be sufficiently large to restore their majority control of the House, which was lost in the 2006 midterms. Republicans were predicted to gain approximately 51 or 52 seats, about the magnitude of their 1994 midterm victory and the largest seat change since the Truman-Dewey election of 1948. As predicted, on Election Day, Republicans won a landslide number of seats, enough to give them a substantial House majority.

Democrats were trounced in the 2010 midterm elections. They lost six seats in the U.S. Senate, six governorships, and about 700 seats in state legislatures. Compared to 2008, Democrats lost 64 seats in the House and Republicans regained their House majority. The Republican majority elected in 2010 was the largest number of Republicans elected since 1946. The analysis finds that Republican seat gains resulted from the receding of the pro-Democratic waves of 2006 and 2008 as well as the incoming pro-Republican wave of 2010. Voters rejected Democrats in 2010 for their failure to revive the economy, but also for their advancement of the national healthcare reform and other liberal policies. The analysis speculates that Democrats are likely to gain House seats and lose Senate seats in 2012. Finally, President Obama's prospects of re-election have probably been improved because of the Republican gains in the 2010 midterm.

The fundamentals of electoral change in the 2010 midterm elections are unmistakable. Electoral change depends on two general sets of political conditions: those of the previous election or elections and those of the current election. Both favor the Republicans this year.