Is Hillary a great campaigner? 'The fundamentals' might matter more.
The Fundamentals. Shorthand for the big underlying factors that determine elections, such as the overall state of the economy and people鈥檚 historic voting tendencies.
A debate has long simmered over the importance of the fundamentals versus the features of the 鈥渉orse race鈥� that the media obsesses over, such as a candidate鈥檚 personal appeal or their campaign鈥檚 ability to get supporters to the polls.
In academic circles, 鈥渢he fundamentals鈥� often win out. Matthew Dickinson, a political scientist at Middlebury College, a blog post just before the November midterm elections called 鈥淭he Election Forecast: It鈥檚 the Fundamentals, Stupid!鈥� He said that midterms revolve around a president鈥檚 performance, whether voters regard the country as being on the right or wrong track, and the economy. 鈥淣o turnout machine, no matter how sophisticated, can make much of a dent when the fundamentals mean you are moving electorally against a strong partisan headwind,鈥� he wrote in successfully predicting big GOP gains.
But other political observers say a fundamentals-focused approach to assessing elections can be misguided. In 2012, polling expert Nate Silver looked at presidential forecasting models over the previous two decades. 鈥淭he models that claim to be able to predict elections based solely on the fundamentals 鈥� that is, without looking to horse-race factors like polls or approval ratings 鈥� have done especially badly,鈥� Silver 鈥淢any of these models claim to explain as much as 90 percent of the variance in election outcomes without looking at a single poll. In practice, they have had almost literally no predictive power, whether looked at individually or averaged together.鈥�
Just before that year鈥檚 election, The Washington Examiner鈥檚 Michael Barone used the f-word in erroneously predicting a massive Mitt Romney win. 鈥淔undamentals usually prevail in American elections,鈥� Barone . 鈥淭hat鈥檚 bad news for Barack Obama.鈥�
These days, 鈥渢he fundamentals鈥� are at the heart of the discussion about Hillary Clinton鈥檚 chances in 2016. In an epic , Jason Zengerle cites what even her staunch supporters admit are middling 鈥� at best 鈥� campaign skills. 鈥淎nd yet, there鈥檚 an increasingly popular school of thought, especially among political scientists but also among some political consultants, that being a good candidate is overrated,鈥� Zengerle wrote. 鈥淪ome even argue that it鈥檚 irrelevant 鈥� not just to what sort of president a candidate would be, but also to whether he or she can get to the White House in the first place.鈥�
The Washington Post鈥檚 Dan Balz also addressed the issue after attending the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. He noted that Republicans are offering a set of candidates with varying ideologies, philosophies, and styles. 鈥淎ll of that is important because candidates and campaigns matter,鈥� Balz 鈥淏ut fundamentals also matter, and few are more important than the changing face of America.鈥� He cited new demographic studies showing how the ever-increasing number of minorities 鈥� who generally tend to back Democrats 鈥� could shape future election outcomes.
Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark write their "Speaking Politics" blog exclusively for Politics Voices.
