When it comes to elections, fundamentals matter. A lot.

A wide range of political science research suggests that if you want to know who will win the presidency, the state of the economy — and especially how economic conditions are changing — matters a great deal, perhaps even more than how charismatic the candidates are or how much money they raise.

The election is 16 months away, but knowing what we know now, what should we expect the economic backdrop to be when Americans choose their next president?

To answer that question, The Times asked leading forecasters from economic consultancies, financial firms and universities for their predictions on where key economic variables will stand on Nov. 8, 2016 — Election Day. The 17 who participated replied with a relatively strong consensus.

They said they believed that unemployment would be the lowest it has been during an election since George W. Bush and Al Gore faced off in 2000, when it stood at 3.9 percent. The median forecast for the unemployment rate when voters go to the polls in November 2016 was 4.8 percent (which would be down from 5.3 percent last month). They saw only a 15 percent chance of a recession starting by next Election Day. Interest rates, inflation and gasoline prices should all be a bit higher than they are now, they said, while staying quite low by historical standards.