In a recent article in the New Yorker, economist James Surowiecki argued that
it doesn’t matter if blame for a poor economy might plausibly be laid on a previous Administration: it’s the party in charge that voters hold responsible. In other words, if the economy is bad on Election Day, blaming George Bush probably won’t work. "The old party gets credit or blame for the first year, and then it’s the new party’s economy," Larry Bartels, a political scientist at Princeton, says. "By November, it will be the Democrats’ economy."
It's a commonplace that elections are referendums on the state of the economy. In fact, research has shown that the saying that "people vote their wallets" is very close to the truth. Although it appears that the economic recovery has hit a rough patch, I will show that measured in both jobs and more importantly income -- with an unlikely backhand assist from the price of gasoline at the pump -- people "voting their wallets" are more likely to vote for Democrats this November than generally expected.