This is the final report in our five-part series on the geopolitics of the 2020 election, which was divided into nine sections. This week, we conclude the report by covering the eighth and ninth sections, the base cases for a Trump or Biden win and market ramifications.
In this five-part series on the geopolitics of the 2020 election, we have divided the reports into nine sections. Last week, in Part III, we covered the incidence of establishment policy and the role of social media. This week, we reveal the sixth and seventh sections; we handicap the race as it stands and discuss how foreign nations are likely to intervene in the election.
Who is Going to Win?
Before we discuss our expectations of the outcome, we want to note that we analyze elections with an eye toward answering two questions. First, who is going to win? Second, what will they do once elected? In our primary role of managing money, we cannot afford to allow any political preference to distort our process as that bias could affect investment performance. And, being well ensconced in the flyover zone of the U.S., our political biases don’t matter anyway. It’s not as if our analysis affects the actual outcomes of elections. Our position is that, as a money manager, we want to know what the future looks like, not necessarily root for a certain outcome. So, here goes.
To forecast the outcome of elections, we have various factors we examine that have signaled the outcomes of previous elections. These factors are:
We are also sensitive to the fact that we don’t directly elect presidents; we elect electors to the Electoral College who, in most states, vote for the president based on the majority of votes in that state.[1] So, our focus is on determining our best estimate of the Electoral College based on polls and available decision markets, along with economic activity at the state level.
In this five-part series on the geopolitics of the 2020 election, we have divided the reports into nine sections. Last week, in Part II, we discussed the second and third sections, understanding the electorate and party coalitions. In this report, we continue our coverage with the fourth and fifth sections, the incidence of the establishment coalition and the impact of social media.
In this five-part series on the geopolitics of the 2020 election, we have broken the reports into nine sections. In Part I, we covered the basics of public finance. This week, we will cover the second and third sections, understanding the electorate and party coalitions.
Understanding the Electorate
Understanding the electorate is about divining the psychological and economic interests of voters. In this section, we describe how we examine the voting public.
There is a distinction between class and identity. Identity is complicated. All of us belong to various groups based upon our gender, race, religion, age, geographic location, education, etc. The interlacing of these various memberships is known as intersectionality. Although the term is often applied to those who face discrimination, in general, this term captures the various “tribal” groups to which we find ourselves belonging. Thus, a white, gay, Catholic with a graduate degree may have something in common with a Hispanic, straight, Catholic with a high school diploma through their religious affiliation. However, it is unlikely the commonality would be very strong. In general, the greater the identity overlap a person has with others the higher the probability they will vote for or favor candidates of a similar persuasion. At the same time, each person tends to “rank order” their identities; some put a much higher rank on race relative to religion, for example. Or, their geographic location is the most important identity classification.
Class is rather straightforward, determined by the decile in which one’s income and wealth falls. This breakdown isn’t perfect, however, as the class interests between two people with equal income can differ. For example, if two middle managers at different firms make the same income, but one manager’s firm benefits from free trade and the other does not, they may favor different economic policies. But, in general, policies favored by class tend to be uniform. For example, the wealthy tend to have similar positions on taxes, while the less affluent tend to think very highly of Social Security.
We define a group as the cross-section of identity and class. A group is a set of like-minded people who tend to support similar political, economic and social positions.
To describe the interplay between identity and class, we have borrowed this grid from Peter Zeihan.
In our geopolitical outlook for 2020,[1] our most important issue was the 2020 elections. In general, U.S. presidential elections are geopolitical issues because of America’s hegemonic status. In an era where the U.S. is changing its position on hegemony, who resides in the White House may be unusually important. Therefore, foreign governments have an incentive to affect the outcome in November.
Due to the importance of this issue, we have written a five-part report, broken into nine sections. The sections are as follows:
[1] The 2020 Geopolitical Outlook, 12/16/19
As is our custom, in mid-December, we publish our geopolitical outlook for the upcoming year. This report is less a series of predictions as it is a list of potential geopolitical issues that we believe will dominate the international landscape for 2020. It is not designed to be exhaustive; instead, it focuses on the “big picture” conditions that we believe will affect policy and markets going forward. They are listed in order of importance.
Issue #1: U.S. 2020 Presidential Election
Issue #2: Iran
Issue #3: China’s Debt
Issue #4: Demographics
Issue #5: North Korea
Honorable Mentions…