Today's US presidential election result was important for a variety of reasons. Not least that it shows how the numbers didn't lie
President Obama’s victory today was important for many reasons. First and foremost, the American people will continue to live under the Affordable Care Act, which Mitt Romney had promised to repeal on his first day in the Presidency.
Obamacare has flaws but it extends healthcare to cover almost all Americans and placed some brakes on the escalating health costs that even now absorb almost a fifth of US GDP.
Second, an experienced President without the shadow of re-election will be able to take a calmer view of foreign affairs than a newcomer. There are major challenges on the horizon, especially over Iran. Mitt Romney displayed a naivety and belligerence that increased risks. Although Obama also pushed the anti-China button, Romney’s vow to label China a currency manipulator would have been very damaging.
Third, the challenger’s insistence that long-run deficit problems can be dealt with by spending cuts alone flies in the face of economic reason. The deficit requires a medium-run plan to raise tax revenues and decreasing expenditures.
Obama’s plans to allow the Bush tax cuts to elapse for the richest households seems eminently reasonable given the stunning rises in US inequality over the last 40 years. Now he must be bolder in removing middle class tax deductions and reforming social security.
Is this too unfair on Romney? He governed Massachusetts from the centre, even passing an early version of Obamacare. But in the primaries and until the final weeks of the campaign, he tacked far to the Tea Party right. Multiple policy flip-flops made it unclear what he really believed.
But there was another much less known winner last night: maths and statistics. Media reports that the race was nail-bitingly close were just plain wrong. Obama has been clear favourite for a long time. Although the national polls have been tight, Obama maintained a slim but significant lead in the swing states like Ohio that are crucial to obtaining enough Electoral College votes to retain the Oval Office.
Nate Silver of the New York Times has been running purely quantitative models based on pooling state-level voting intentions to predict electoral college votes. Even after the disastrous first Presidential debate, Silver still put Obama’s chances of winning at a healthy 61%. On election morning, he had Obama on a 91% chance of winning.
The lesson is to ignore pontificating from highly paid pundits using their 'gut' in sports, business, and politics. Put your faith in the numbers.
Viva President Obama, Viva stats.
Professor John Van Reenen is director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. This blog first appeared on its site
