[Smerconish:] As scandal and countless investigations swirl around the Trump administration in Washington, the economy may be the president's saving grace. According to dozens of models, the booming U.S. economy all but solidifies a landslide victory for President Trump in 2020. In every single one, Trump wins. This makes Rush Limbaugh, for one, pretty happy.
[Rush Limbaugh, Conservative Radio:] And there's other polling data out there today, including three supposed experts at modeling future elections, turnouts and all that with computer models and all three of these guys are commie-based, left-wing types and they all three are in fact, one of them has 12 different models and Trump wins them all re-election.
[Smerconish:] Joining me now, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, Mark Zandi, who has analyzed 12 models for the 2020 election. I feel like my first question should be, Mark Zandi, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
[Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody's Analytics:] That's the first I've heard of that, Michael. That was pretty comical. Yes. No, I have not I'm not a commie and I've never been a commie. No. I'm an American.
[Smerconish:] What did you do here? Give us the overview.
[Zandi:] Yes. So this is a model. So we look at historical voting patterns. The model is based at the state level to account for the electoral college. It includes economic variables, things like unemployment, the change in unemployment, change in gas prices, house prices and also political variables, things like the president's approval rating, previous voting patterns, the benefit of incumbency. So lots of different factors. and of course, we test the model based on how well it has done historically. But you know, I should say the model is predicting these models are predicting that Trump would win if the election were held today, not, you know, 18 months from now. So there's a lot of economic script to be written between now and then and things will change, almost certainly will change. So the models are only as good as of today.
[Smerconish:] OK. So as not to repeat the mistake of pollsters in the last cycle, do you look at things nationally, I.E., popular vote or state-by-state?
[Zandi:] State-by-state. So state-by-state and actually it's quite interesting. I mean, if you look at it, it's intuitive. Pennsylvania, where I live and I think I think you live in Pennsylvania as well, Philadelphia...
[Smerconish:] True.
[Zandi:] ... that is the most swing state. It's right on the bubble and actually if you look at the counties within the state, and we actually model at a county level, the real battle is around Philadelphia in the Philadelphia suburbs. That's where the swingest of swing votes are and that's going to be key. And one other really important point, Michael. It's really about turnout. So one interesting thing is these models don't account for turnout. They implicitly assume that turnout is equal to the average turnout since 1980 when these models were the data that we're using. If Democrats turnout at high levels, say at the levels that prevailed back in the 2008 election, the first Obama election, then in fact the D candidate would win even with this good economy. So it's really going to be very important for Ds to turn out in big numbers if they if they want to win this election, if the economy still is good 12 months from 12, 18 months from now...
[Smerconish:] Without the economy, is it fair to is it fair to say is it fair to say that without the economy, if the economy should take a turn for the worse, then your models would all say that he's done? In other words, you're showing him in the best of circumstances according to the economic numbers.
[Zandi:] Yes. No, that's exactly right. So we have a three point nationally, we have a 3.6 percent unemployment rate. That's a 50-year low. What really matters is 12, 18 months from now, what is the unemployment rate? Is it is it rising or is it falling? If it if it's rising, even from a low level, then he's got a problem economically. And then if the Democrats turnout in large numbers, if they're really charged up, feels like they are, then these models will show something very different. It'll show that D wins, not Trump.
[Smerconish:] You know, the president has, I'll say it this way, an outsized personality which helps him with his base and harms him with his detractors. That's really what's offsetting your data. Let me say it more simply. Anybody else with these economic numbers, I think Mark Zandi would be going much further in saying, guy's a shoo-in.
[Zandi:] Yes. Yes. You got that exactly right. I mean, all the political factors, you know, favor him. He's an incumbent, right? An incumbent after their first term running again has an advantage. Of course, the way the electoral college is set up, that is an advantage to him. The one thing that's not working for him politically is his approval rating, but even there, right now, his approval rating we use the "Gallup Poll" for the approval numbers is relatively high. It's about as high as it's been since he's been president. And then you throw on this economy, particularly what's going on in the job market, there's a very low unemployment, you know, that gives him a lot of tail winds and that's why he wins, but even despite all of that, despite the great economy, you know, it's not a slam dunk. One other thing, Michael, I should point out, these are models, right? And models are wrong and we saw that in 2016. The models that now are predicting Trump would win are the same models that predicted Clinton would win back in 2016. So you have to take this, you know, with that in mind.
[Smerconish:] Got it. If we'd had this conversation before the last cycle, you'd have been speaking of Hillary, you commie-based...
[Zandi:] Yes.
[Smerconish:] ... left-wing type.
[Zandi:] Yes. You got it. Yes. YEs.
[Smerconish:] Mark, thank you. Appreciate it.
[Zandi:] Thank you. Take care.
[Smerconish:] Checking on your tweet and Facebook comments. What do we have, Catherine? "For who? People like me, middle class, have to look for second jobs to be able to make it." Marisol, you know, I hear that from individuals who are on my radio program running focus groups. Richard Vague is one of them who has come on and said, you know, when he's conducting focus groups, yes, people are employed, but they're holding two jobs just to make sure that they're able to pay for that which they need and they're still concerned about how they're going to be able to afford health insurance. I get your point. I want to remind everybody, answer the survey question at Smerconish.com. Do it now, OK? Will America's gun problem, my words, ever change? Still to come, in deciding not to charge the president with obstruction, Robert Mueller made his own interpretation of the law. Well, who voted for that?