This video is sponsored in part by Curiosity Stream
I’m Mr. Beat
And (censored) will win the next Presidential election.
Part of the reason why I am saying that is because Ethan
from the channel Let’s Talk Elections has predicted that.
Mr. Beat: Who do you predict will win
the election? Ethan: I think that (censored) is gonna win the presidential election.
So, we both know that (censored) is going to win the next Presidential election.
But what if we could go back in American history,
and change the outcomes of previous elections? Can we obtain such power? Mwhahahahaha
Ethan and I dorked out recently by playing a game called The Campaign
Trail. It’s on a website called American History USA,
and in it you basically just pretend like you are different candidates running for President in real
historical presidential elections.You can pretend to be real candidates and
get to choose your running mate. You answer questions about your platform and positions,
and choose which states to visit. There are lots of alternate history possibilities.
We both chose to play the Election of 2016 and 2012, and then two
other elections of our choice. And then we met up to compare our results.
Alright, yeah, so let's get into our results of the game. I think we should start with the 2016 election.
I played one on the plane today, because I tried to win on impossible mode, and I did. I won on impossible mode.
Mr. Beat: Yeah, I failed every time. Ethan: Really? Mr. Beat: (laughs) I am horrible at this game.
These are all of our choices. We got 2016, 2016 alternate version, 2012, 2000, 1988, 1976, 1968, 1960, 1948, 1916, 1896, 1860, 1844
I've seen some people do, like, landslides on impossible mode, so. Mr. Beat: What are your opinions of this game?
This game is pretty binary, but there's four options. The certain answers aren't the ones that I necessarily think are the best. Some of them kind of lock you into a predicament where there is no right answer.
It's just, sort of, what appeases the voters the most. Um, I found that this game does put you in difficult situations so it's not like there's a perfect response which I think is good but also it's hard to gauge where you are.
Let me look at the one where I was Tim Kaine. I think I was hit with a couple of scandals as Hillary Clinton, and I had to respond to Donald Trump when he said certain things
There were certain times where I responded and it said you shouldn't have responded that way, you should have focused on your attributes or you should have double downed on him.
There were some certain things where I felt it was difficult for me to get the right answer but it was a pretty cool experience. Mr. Beat: Yeah, I had fun
playing them I just was horrible at them.
Turns out that you will be running against Trump, likely with a significant fundraising advantage. Those are the advisors there.
The FBI Director James Comey has handed down a severe criticism of your email practices as Secretary of State but though he declined to recommend any indictments, do you have any comment?
Hmm, I'm gonna go with I used the same email practices as Colin Powell and many other people in government.
Ethan: Sometimes what you think they should have done to win the election actually ended up hurting them more. Mr. Beat: Yeah, I mean I had Bernie Sanders running with Hillary Clinton
but it seems that a lot of the progressive voters were just not buying it.
The differences between us are much smaller than the things that unite us. I think the first one. You can't deny Bernie Sanders enjoys a huge amount of support.
Especially because I was talking out of both sides of my mouth answering the questions because I was still not trying to lose the moderates and trying to reach some conservatives and it just did not work out.
Ok, ok...as fun as playing The Campaign Trail is, the game surprisingly does a mediocre
job at emphasizing THE most important thing that predicts election results.
After this brief and awkward cut to this video’s sponsor, I will explain what that thing
is. But first, maybe pause the video and type it in the comments to see if you got it right.
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Ok so what’s the most important outcome determining an election?
No matter what the election is, even this one, what people care about the most is whether or
not they can put food on the table, and if you just look at the economic data,
you can almost always predict who will actually get elected.
But which economic data? Well first of all, we only have fairly reliable economic data
since the 1940s. Second, it’s always about comparing that data...comparing data from
the election year to the data from the year BEFORE the election. So what do we look at?
Nate Silver once put together a set of 43 economic indicators and ranked them by how reliable they
were predicting the next President. At the top of the list? The ISM manufacturing index.
(nodding) Obviously….the ISM manufacturing index...wait what’s the ISM manufacturing index?
Apparently that’s a way to measure manufacturing activity based on a monthly survey by the
Institute for Supply Management, or ISM. Ok, who are these folks taking this survey?
Purchasing managers at more than 300 manufacturing companies.
So is it safe to say that if the ISM manufacturing index has gone up since
the last election, then the incumbent gets re-elected? And if it’s gone down,
the challenging candidate gets elected? Well, not quite.
Silver admitted that all of those indicators were individually not that great at predicting
who would win the election. However, we do still have some economic rules that work quite well.
First, there’s the real GDP per capita growth rule, which basically is that the incumbent
political party usually wins if the growth rate of real GDP per capita is increasing at a higher
rate in the election year compared to the previous year. Well, it’s been going down since last year.
That doesn’t bode well for President Trump. Now wait a second, what about the Misery Index Rule?
The Misery Index Rule says the incumbent usually wins if The Misery Index has not gone up in the
election year compared to the previous year. Wait Misery Index? That sounds like something
from a Stephen King book. The Misery Index is simply adding together the rate of inflation and
the unemployment rate. Get it? High inflation plus high unemployment equals economic misery? So yeah,
you want a low Misery Index obviously. More bad news for President Trump. The average inflation
rate in 2019 was 1.8%, and the unemployment rate was 3.6%, giving us a misery index that year of
5.4. Based on the latest available data, we currently have a 1.4% inflation rate and an
unemployment rate of 7.9%, giving us a current misery level index of 9.3. The misery index
has gone up by 3.9. Again, not looking good for Trump. This leads us to the Guaranteed Loss Rule.
The Guaranteed Loss Rule says if both the real GDP per capita goes down in the election year compared
to the previous year AND the Misery Index has gone up in the election year compared to the previous
year, the incumbent will lose. Based on the GDP per capita growth data, inflation rate data,
and unemployment rate data we have since going back to the 1940s, The Guaranteed Loss Rule
has never failed to predict who will win the presidential election. If it stays true, Joe
Biden will win on Election Day. Throw everything else out, it’s the economy, ya silly goose.
Thanks to Ethan from Let’s Talk Elections for collaborating with me for this video.
I’ve been watching his channel since 2016, since he was just a kid...ok
he’s STILL just a kid, but he’s so incredibly insightful and wise for his age. Be sure to check
out his election video he just released at the same time as this one over on his channel, and
be sure to subscribe while you’re over there. Fair warning- I may or may not be in his video as well.
So who do YOU think will win the election? Can we really trust the
economic data so much? Let me know in the comments below, and Happy Election Day!