Inversions in US Presidential Elections: 1836–2016 | Zendy

Michael Geruso | Zendy; Dean Spears | Zendy; Ishaana Talesara | Zendy

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Inversions in US Presidential Elections: 1836–2016

Author(s) -

Michael Geruso,

Dean Spears,

Ishaana Talesara

Publication year - 2021

Publication title -

american economic journal applied economics

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 12.996

H-Index - 82

eISSN - 1945-7782

pISSN - 1945-7790

DOI - 10.1257/app.20200210

Subject(s) - presidential system , margin (machine learning) , point (geometry) , political science , presidential election , percentage point , ex ante , demographic economics , econometrics , political economy , economics , statistics , law , mathematics , politics , keynesian economics , computer science , geometry , machine learning

Inversions—in which the popular vote winner loses the election— have occurred in four US presidential races. We show that rather than being statistical flukes, inversions have been ex ante likely since the early 1800s. In elections yielding a popular vote margin within 1 point (one-eighth of presidential elections), about 40 percent will be inversions in expectation. We show this conditional probability is remarkably stable across historical periods—despite differences in which groups voted, which states existed, and which parties participated. Our findings imply that the United States has experienced so few inversions merely because there have been so few elections (and fewer close elections). (JEL D72, N41, N42)

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