This edited volume is the first comprehensive text to provide an evidence-based (i.e. emphasizing the practical application of the findings of the best available current research) and nonpartisan (i.e. not biased, especially toward any particular political group) analyses of the United States Presidential Election of 2020. The contributors to this volume present evidence pertaining to polling and improbabilities, the modernization of United States elections administration and the voting process, voting strategy and legal wrangling, the Black view, and challenges to democracy. The collection ends with a unifying theme, predicts the probability for the 2024 Presidential Election, and offers policy recommendations for future Presidential Elections.

In this paper I apply the Bread and Peace model of voting in US presidential elections to analyze the sources of George W. Bush's narrow re-election victory in 2004. The aggregate election outcome is readily explained by the model's objectively measured political-economic fundamentals - no appeal need be made to arbitrary count, trend, dummy and switching variables. The results imply that the 2004 election turned mainly on weighted-average growth of per capita real disposable personal income over the term. The war in Iraq, which has escalated dramatically in political relevance since the 2004 contest, had a relatively small impact on the election result, most likely depressing Bush's two-party vote share by less than a half percentage point.

This book develops an integrated approach to understanding the American economy and national elections. Economic policy is generally seen as the result of a compromise between the President and Congress. Because Democrats and Republicans usually maintain polarized preferences on policy, middle-of-the-road voters seek to balance the President by reinforcing in Congress the party not holding the White House. This balancing leads, always, to relatively moderate policies and, frequently, to divided government. The authors first outline the rational partisan business cycle, where Republican administrations begin with recession, and Democratic administrations with expansions, and next the midterm cycle, where the President's party loses votes in the mid-term congressional election. The book argues that both cycles are the result of uncertainty about the outcome of presidential elections. Other topics covered include retrospective voting on the economy, coat-tails, and incumbency advantage. A final chapter shows how the analysis sheds light on the economies and political processes of other industrial democracies.