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Political scientist puts Trump’s reelection chances at 91%

“This model gets it right for 25 of the 27 elections since 1912, when primaries were introduced,” he told Mediaite.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

Stony Brook University Prof. Helmut Norpoth predicts that President Donald Trump is a shoo-in come November.

“The Primary Model gives Trump a 91 percent chance of winning in November,” Norpoth told website Mediaite on Tuesday.

Not only does Norpoth predict Trump will win in 2020, he says he’ll do so by a greater margin than in his first victory, raking in 362 electoral votes against his 304 in 2016.

Norpoth correctly predicted Trump’s win in 2016 some nine months before that election. Most polls then showed Hillary Clinton as a heavy favorite.

Indeed, Norpoth’s “primary model” has accurately predicted the winner of the popular vote in the last six presidential elections, since it was introduced in 1996.

In the primary model, the focus is on enthusiasm generated by candidates in the primaries early on. “In general, the party with the stronger candidate in primaries tends to win in November,” Norpoth explained in The Hill prior to the 2016 election.

By that measure, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is in a weak position. He placed fourth in Iowa’s caucuses with 15.8 percent of the vote and fifth in New Hampshire with 8.4 percent of the vote. Not until the South Carolina primary did he start to gain traction.

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Norpoth says that his model would have accurately forecast the outcomes of all but two presidential elections in the last 108 years. “This model gets it right for 25 of the 27 elections since 1912, when primaries were introduced,” he told Mediaite.

Polls show the president trailing by 8 to 12 points nationally, as the economy he built up tanked under the coronavirus pandemic. A CNBC survey last month also show him falling behind in key swing states, including Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Norpoth notes to Mediaite, “The terrain of presidential contests is littered with nominees who saw a poll lead in the spring turn to dust in the fall.”