Recessions Predict The Presidential Election

No matter who you voted for this presidential election, according to history, the outcome was already decided. A few years ago, after Donald Trump was elected president, the United States had been on a historic bull run in the stock market.

So, it got me thinking, when will this come to an end?

When it comes to being an adult, it’s super important to form your own opinions. As far as making predictions, by no means do I have a crystal ball. I did find a trend about predicting the outcomes of elections.

Here’s what I found going back to 1928. Every time a Recession occurs in the 1st Term of the presidency reelection does not occur.         

Calvin Coolidge was the President from 1923 to 1929. In August of 1929, that’s when America entered the Great Depression. There was a huge banking panic that ending up collapsing our money supply, which was then preceded that we committed ourselves to the gold standard. The depression occurred at the end of Coolidge’s term. While Coolidge was unable to run for another term, Franklin D. Roosevelt was victoriously changing the White House from Republican to Democrat.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was our President for 4 terms until his death in 1945. This was at the end of World War II and due to the lack of government spending, we entered into the Recession of 1945. This recession only lasted 8 months as our country shifted from wartime into peacetime.

Since the Recession of 1945 happened in the 2nd term,

Democrats stayed in the White House with the election of Harry S. Truman. Since Truman began in office due to the death of Roosevelt, he was only elected for 1-term by the American people.

The beginning of Truman’s 1st term in office came the Recession of 1949. Although this was a brief downturn of economic activity, being that it happened in the 1st term, Truman was defeated by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. Eisenhower went on to serve 2 terms as President and at the end of his 2nd term, the Recession of 1958 came upon us.

With Nixon being in office, this was when we had the 1973 oil crisis sending America into a Recession for 1 year and 4 months.

Being the recession occurred in his first term, America changed parties again with Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter took over office from 1977 to 1981, during this period he had to deal with the Recession of 1980 and the Recession of 1981 to 1982. 2 Recessions in the 1st term, ended the Carter administration by being defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan.

Until the early 1990s, America experienced no Recession. The result of the Recession of the early 1990s due to rising interest rates led to Bill Clinton winning the 1992 presidential election. Clinton remained president until 2001, where we found ourselves living through Y2K. The dot com bubble was at the end of Clinton’s reign in the White House and the Republican took it back with the election of George H.W. Bush.

From 2001 to 2007, there were no major economic downturns,

then we were hit hard by the Great Recession. Being the Recession was at the end of Bush’s term, again we changed over from elephants to donkeys with Barrack Obama. Barrack served until 2017 and America experienced unprecedented growth in the stock market. Despite this boom, Donald Trump was hit with the COVID-19 Recession and wasn’t reelected.

Overall, there is no formula to figure out exactly who will win each presidential election. However, by looking at history, when Recessions occur in our economy is a great predictor of which party will take over the White House.

Your Guide,

Joshua Krafchick, AKA “CHACHI”

Want to learn more about the United States economy? Click Below!

1. Future of the Economy.
2. The Financial Crisis.
3. We’re in a Recession.