Political Theory Prediction

 It is time to visit the land of political prediction heaven. This article will stay here and then try to explain why we don’t live and vote there. The article explains the way the predictions are calculated, and then the next article will be about why I can assure you my predictions will be inaccurate.

The idea behind the article is that each election is predictable and can be guessed hundreds of years in advance assuming a two party political system and making four simple assumptions. Assumption one, an incumbent President will always be reelected; this doesn’t always happen just ask Jimmy Carter about that. Two, every president’s successor will be a member of the opposite political party. Not always true either, George H.W. Bush is thankful for that. Third is the idea that the opposing party will always win the midterm election. This is not true always either because the Republicans actually gained seats in 2002 while George W. Bush was in office. Fourth is the assumption that if a party wins the presidency they will also benefit from the coat tail effect; and subsequently, they will win control of both the House and that year’s Senate Class Election. If all four of the assumptions were never broken, a pattern for each group emerges. In these patterns, R stands for Republicans and D for Democrats. For the President the pattern is easy, it is in fact the pattern that all the others are based off of according to our assumptions; it is DDRRDD... In the senate, each class follows the pattern of DDDDRRRRDDDD… The pattern in the US House of Representatives is DDRDRRDR…

This would dictate that Obama gets reelected and Democrats gain control of the House and also maintain control of Senate Class One which they should, hypothetically, lose control of in the 2030 Election. Hypothetically, the 2030’s will be a great decade for the Republican Party while the 2020’s will be great for the Democrats. The Republican will regain Senate Class Two in 2014 and lose it in 2038. The Democrats will regain Senate class three in 2022. The party of the president is also guaranteed a full control of congress during their first two years of their presidency and of their second term. In the long term, it is a washout which makes perfect sense; an equal rule of Democrats and Republicans is the long run equilibrium of politics.

President

                Democratic (2009-2017, 2025-2033, 2041-2049, 2057-2065)

                Republican (2017-2025, 2033-2041, 2049-2057, 2065-2073)

Senate Class One

                Democrats (2007-2031, 2055-2073)

                Republicans (2031-2055)

Senate Class Two

                Democrats (2009-2015, 2039-2063)

                Republicans (2015-2039, 2063-2087)

Senate Class Three

                Democrats (2023-2047, 2071-2095)

                Republicans (2011-2023, 2047-2071)

US House of Representatives

                Democrats (2013-2015, 2019-2021, 2023-2027, 2029-2031, 2035-2037, 2039-2043, 2045-2047, 2051-2053, 2055-2059, 2061-2063, 2067-2069, 2071-2073)

                Republicans (2011-2013, 2015-2019, 2021-2023, 2027-2029, 2031-2035, 2037-2039, 2043-2045, 2047-2051, 2053-2055, 2059-2061, 2063-2067, 2069-2071)