Does the Economy Guarantee Trump’s Re-Election?

Axios suggests President Trump is well-positioned to win re-election based on the strength of the economy based on this statistic: “Every incumbent president since FDR has won if he avoided a recession in the lead-up to an election year.”

Philip Bump: “Well, that’s that, right? Can’t argue with data.”

“Except that the sample size here is… small. There have been 13 presidents since Franklin Roosevelt. Only three have lost reelection bids, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. There have been seven recessions since 1970, two of which ended in the first quarters of the year before reelection bids (Ford’s and Bush’s). Is that what doomed them? More importantly, does that mean that a president without a recession can’t be defeated?”

For more on predicting the future based on the past, see this XKCD comic.