The Primary Model
2024 Forecast
75% Certain Biden Will Be Re-elected
Primaries Predict Election Winner
Electoral Cycle Favors Sitting Presidents
Forecast Model Batting 5 for 7 Since 1996, Retroactively 25 for 28 Since 1912
The Primary Model gives President Joe Biden a 75% chance to defeat Donald Trump in November. This forecast takes account of the performance of the two candidates in the early primaries (New Hampshire and South Carolina). Biden won the Democratic contests in those states by far larger margins than Trump did in Republican ones. What also benefits Biden in the general election is an electoral cycle that favors the sitting president. In a nutshell, a White House incumbent facing no significant challenge in primaries almost always wins re-election. As for the Electoral College, the most likely outcome of the 2024 presidential election predicted by the model is that Biden will get 315 electoral votes and Trump 223.
The Primary Model (primarymodel.com) relies on presidential primaries and an election cycle as predictors of the vote in the general election. This year the forecast is arrived in a three-step process: first the algorithm predicts the popular vote in 2024, then it converts that estimate into a prediction of the Electoral College vote, and finally a simulation is run to estimate the likelihood of either candidate winning the election.
The core premise of the Primary Model is that winning primaries predicts electoral victory in November. On the Democratic side, Joe Biden got 63.9 percent of the primary vote in New Hampshire, as a writing-candidate no less, followed by 96.2 percent in South Carolina. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Donald Trump scored 54.3 percent in New Hampshire and 59.8 percent in South Carolina. Bottom line: Biden had the stronger primary performance. And that augurs well for Biden winning the general election.
What should also favor Biden in 2024 is a cycle of presidential elections operating for nearly 200 years. While partisan tenure in the White House fluctuates regularly, swinging back and forth after about two to three terms on average, it is still a safe bet after one term.
Another way to illustrate this advantage is the snapshot of elections since 1960. After one term in the White House the incumbent party has won most contests unlike the situation when it has held office for two or more terms.
Presidential elections going back as far as 1912 are used to estimate the weight of primary performance. It was in 1912 that presidential primaries were introduced. That year the candidate who won his party’s primary vote, Woodrow Wilson, went on to defeat the candidate who lost his party’s primary vote, William Howard Taft. As a rule, the candidate with the stronger primary performance wins against the candidate with the weaker primary performance
For elections prior to 1952 all primaries were included. Beginning in 1952, only the New Hampshire Primary has been used, as a rule. South Carolina has been added for elections since 2008. Both Obama then and Hillary Clinton in 2016 enjoyed strong support in a large and most loyal Democratic constituency, African-Americans, who are few in numbers in New Hampshire.
For the record, the PRIMARY MODEL, with slight modifications, has picked the winner of all but two of the presidential elections since it was introduced in 1996. Both misses came under extraordinary circumstances. The 2000 case featured a protracted recount dispute in the pivotal state of Florida, which was not settled until a-5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court Bush v. Gore. The other one was the 2020 election, which sparked protests by the losing side over the handling of mail ballots and other voting procedures adopted in the wake of the Covid Pandemic. Trump and many of his supporters claimed the election was stolen, prompting a mob to storm the Capitol on January 6. For elections from 1912 to 1992, the PRIMARY MODEL picks the winner, albeit retroactively, every time except in 1960, also one not without controversy about the true winner.