Larry J. Sabato is university professor of politics and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, which publishes the online, free Crystal Ball politics newsletter every Thursday, and a contributing editor at Politico Magazine. His most recent book is The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy. Kyle Kondik is managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. His forthcoming book, The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President, is scheduled for release next year by Ohio University Press. Geoffrey Skelley is associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

The rise of Donald Trump might represent some massive sea change in American politics—but it’s far more likely he will fade long before the primary season does. Thanks to Trump, August was a blockbuster month for the political press, but most of what is happening now won’t decide who is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017.

Given the early beginning to this cycle’s presidential derby—Jeb Bush unofficially jumpstarted the race back in December 2014—it feels like the primary season should be launching in a couple of weeks. But it’s not. As Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg and Gonzales Political Report recently observed, college football, which just kicked off last weekend, will have a new national champion before any of the caucuses or primaries are slated to be held.


Still, the real factors that will decide the contest in 2016 are starting to come into view. As the media’s focus on the horserace intensifies, and they obsess over minor gaffes and meaningless slights, here are eight factors you should keep in mind as you size up the state of the race.

#1. Will a recession doom the Democrats?

A good or even great economy doesn’t guarantee success for the incumbent president’s party—see Al Gore in 2000—but a bad one just might guarantee failure, like John McCain in 2008. That’s not to suggest that the nominees don’t matter—both parties could end up making strong or poor choices—but if there a recession over the next year the Democrats’ chances of retaining the White House could dwindle.

The National Bureau of Economic Research has identified 22 recessions of varying magnitude since 1901—on average, that’s about one recession every five years, and the last one ended in June 2009, according to the bureau. That doesn’t mean we’re necessarily “due” for a recession; it just means that historically, recessions happen fairly regularly.

We have no idea whether a recession will strike between now and Election Day next year. It’s just a critically important factor that menaces in the background. Looking a bit further ahead, if a recession doesn’t come before 2016, it could come in 2017 or 2018, which would invariably do damage to House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates flying the president’s party banner those years.

#2. Obama looms over the race.

In the polling era, no major-party nominee has won a third term for his party when the White House incumbent has been below 50 percent. At the moment, President Obama is around roughly 45 percent approval and slightly over 50 percent disapproval in both the RealClearPolitics and HuffPost Pollster averages. No one knows whether Obama will go up, down or stay the same in the 14 months ahead, but to win the Democratic presidential nominee will need Obama either to add a few points of popularity or stimulate disproportionate turnout among those who approve of his performance. It may also be that in this partisan era, voters are more willing to affirm the party of a president whose performance in office they find lacking because they just dislike the other party so much.

This rule only applies to two-way contests. Hubert Humphrey almost won in 1968 even though President Lyndon Johnson was in the low 40s; independent George Wallace drew votes primarily from Richard Nixon, making for a photo-finish between Nixon and Humphrey. So if, say, Donald Trump broke his new pledge or another wealthy celebrity with a conservative profile launched an independent campaign, Obama’s current job approval might well be enough to elect a Democrat.

#3. Don’t Count Bernie Sanders out in the early states.

Sanders could beat Hillary Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The most recent polls in those states have found Sanders in his most competitive position yet. The Vermont senator is strongest in the Granite State, where successive polls have shown him leading. In the Hawkeye State, the latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg survey, run by well-regarded Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, showed Clinton ahead of Sanders just 37 percent to 30 percent, though her leads are larger in other polls.

Aside from threatening in the first two states, the intensity of the crowds attending Sanders’ appearances could translate into electoral victories in several caucuses. The robust energy of Sanderistas may not win him primaries in the South or in some big states where Clinton’s resource advantages will boost her, but 14 states and four territories will use a caucus and/or convention method as a part of determining their delegate commitments for the 2016 Democratic National Convention. And we estimate that 10 of those states had nonwhite participation of less than 20 percent in their 2008 Democratic nominating elections. So the demographics in many of these contests look more favorable to Sanders than Clinton because of Sanders’ strengths with white liberals.

Moreover, Clinton has a poor performance history in caucuses. In 2008 she only won the caucus vote in one state, Nevada, and one territory, American Samoa. Obama won the Democratic nomination by combining his strength in the caucuses with big primary wins in the South and parts of the Midwest. Sanders could at least repeat the first part of that trifecta and do something Obama couldn’t do: win New Hampshire.

#4. But Clinton remains a strong favorite for the nomination.

Now for the reality check. For better or worse, the Democratic Party has placed an early bet on Hillary. In all the traditional ways—endorsements, money, media coverage—she has lapped her opposition. With respect to her announced opponents, Clinton hasn’t drawn especially potent rivals. (Compare her to Jeb Bush, who intimidated no one and drew 16 competitors on the GOP side despite having the ultimate establishment name and oodles of cash.)

Consider this: As long as the email mess doesn’t sink her, Clinton could lose both heavily white Iowa and New Hampshire, and still have a fairly unobstructed path to the nomination because of her mighty position with women and minorities. This is true even if Vice President Joe Biden enters the race.

This is not to say Hillary can’t find a way to blow it. Her inept early campaigning and bungled handling of the email controversy underline the inadequacies that helped Obama beat Clinton in 2008. But beating Hillary in 2016 would be much tougher than it was last time.

#5. Most of what has happened so far won't matter.

A few weeks ago CNN produced a list of “jaw-dropping moments” from the 2016 campaign. It included several Trumpisms and items such as Hillary Clinton saying that she and her husband were “dead broke” after leaving the White House. It’s a reasonable and entertaining collection of anecdotes, but we don’t see them having any effect on the election.

The one exception might be Jeb Bush’s repeated stumbles over whether he would have gone to war in Iraq. Bush’s difficulty with the most predictable question he could get is part of a larger problem: His campaign performance been weak so far, and it might be hurting him in his quest to lock up the support of party poohbahs—historically an important indicator in winning presidential nominations. But, beyond that, don’t read too much into gaffes on the trail: They’re blips, not game-changers.

One other example: Trump’s harsh rhetoric toward Hispanics and illegal immigration may hurt Republicans next November—or he and his rhetoric may be long forgotten, allowing the eventual GOP nominee to compete with those voters on his or her own merits. Gallup recently showed that Trump’s favorability amongst Hispanics is far worse than any other Republican candidate. Trump or no Trump, Hispanics are likely to disproportionately support the Democratic nominee, as they have for decades. Whether Republicans improve or slide among this group will have more to do with the identity of the real nominee than what the non-nominees have said or done during the primary campaign.

#6. Keep an eye on endorsements.

As The Party Decides has famously and compellingly argued, endorsements from party regulars, particularly sitting members of Congress and governors, are useful indicators of a candidate’s relative strength or weakness in a nomination fight. So who is winning the endorsement race?

On the Democratic side, the story is pretty straightforward: Hillary Clinton is dominating. In fact, according to FiveThirtyEight, she’s in a stronger endorsement position than any modern Democratic candidate. There are 44 Democratic senators and 188 Democratic representatives in Congress. Of those, 30 senators and 100 representatives have backed Clinton. Meanwhile, seven of the 18 Democratic governors have also endorsed her. In other words, of these 250 top elected Democrats, Clinton has earned the support of 137, or 55 percent, not to mention loads of lower-level statewide officials, state legislators and local pols, particularly in the early states.

As for Clinton’s opponents, Sanders has exactly zero endorsements from sitting Democratic senators (his own colleagues), representatives or governors. What Democrat wants to stick his or her neck out to endorse someone who isn’t technically a Democrat even though he’s making a bid for that party’s nomination? Meanwhile, former Gov. Martin O’Malley (MD) has garnered the backing of just one member of Congress, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA). The other two Democratic presidential candidates, ex-Sen. Jim Webb (VA) and ex-Gov. and ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (RI), join Sanders in drawing a blank so far. Still officially a non-candidate, Biden has three such endorsers—but all of them are from Delaware.

The Republican endorsement picture is far fuzzier. Jeb Bush has earned the most support from GOP eminences, winning 22 endorsements—which is still quite meager. Sen. Rand Paul (KY) is second in raw numbers, 10. But look at the party contrast: many Democrats have waded into the presidential race while few Republicans have publicly backed a candidate. And most of the Republican legislators who have endorsed come from the same state as the candidate they support represents or governs (or did in the past). Compare Clinton’s total of 137 major-party elected endorsements to the entire Republican field’s total of 60. (Trump, by the way, has the same number of these endorsements as Sanders: zero.)

Of these major GOP officeholders, only six of 54 senators, 50 of 246 representatives, and four of 31 governors have formally endorsed; that is, just 18 percent of 331 in total. While it isn’t unusual for many pols to delay endorsing, the 2016 cycle is looking somewhat like the 2012 cycle, which didn’t see the 25 percent mark broken until the fourth quarter of 2011.

#7. Trump is still unlikely to be the nominee.

We’re not disputing that Donald Trump is the clear polling frontrunner on the GOP side, or that he has struck a chord with millions of voters unimpressed with politicians that “talk rather than do.” Two other candidates who’ve never held elected office, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, are also attracting large shares of support.

However, the Trump candidacy has all the markings of an early bubble that will eventually burst. We’re betting that most Republicans will return to traditional politicians as the election season rolls on. Out of the current 17 GOP candidates, five come closest to meeting the usual metrics required to win a major-party nomination: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

As concerned as many are about Bush’s dynasty burdens and Jeb’s uneven, unexciting performances on the trail, he still has the best chance to win over the party establishment (big donors and big-name politicians). Plus, his $119 million, and growing, war chest is far greater than those of his rivals.

While two Floridians will eventually prove to be one too many, Marco Rubio is widely acknowledged to have the most political talent on the debate stage, even if his abilities are not fully developed. It will nonetheless be a leap for Republicans to choose a freshman senator, having pummeled Barack Obama in 2008 for similar inexperience.

Like Bush, Scott Walker has been somewhat wooden, but his hero status as the union vanquisher from Wisconsin carries weight with financiers and rank-and-file Republicans alike. Walker has been sliding in Iowa and nationally, and his unfamiliarity with some domestic and international issues has led to awkward moments, but he has the potential to rebound under the right circumstances.

Ted Cruz has raised more money than any Republican but Bush, and he is beloved by the conservative activists that will dominate many of the party caucuses and primaries. He is also making a play to pick up Trump’s supporters if and when the current frontrunner fades, although Trump’s support comes from across the party’s ideological spectrum, and his supporters would not all scurry to the same candidate.

John Kasich is more of a longshot, but he has impressed many senior Republicans who think, with a running-mate such as Rubio, he could put together 270 electoral votes more easily than the rest of the field. Importantly, Kasich has been moving up in New Hampshire, with its more moderate-conservative GOP electorate.

#8. The 2016 election will be unique.

With a couple of leading legacy candidates, it’s natural for observers to make connections between 2016 and previous presidential elections. Should Clinton and Bush emerge as the major-party nominees, there’ll be comparisons galore to the last race between those famous names in 1992 (or to the 1988 contest that Bush’s father won, and the 2000 and 2004 contests that produced Jeb’s brother’s presidency).

It’s already obvious that Hillary isn’t Bill, despite the fact that scandal seems to shadow them both. Hillary Clinton appears to be more policy-oriented and organized than her husband, but she can’t begin to match his natural political gifts. As for the Bushes, they all have mixed but mainly successful electoral records. However, inspiring rhetoric didn’t get any of them elected, and early impressions suggest Jeb Bush may be the least exciting speaker of the three. Moreover, Bush has a tougher path to victory than his family predecessors, much of that due to his brother’s controversial and unpopular White House record.

The comparisons between Donald Trump and Ross Perot are easy to make. Just as Perot was in 1992, Trump is a billionaire who can self-finance. Perot made his campaign about the national debt, and Trump has highlighted immigration. While very wealthy men, both have a populist appeal to the little guy that sees them as un-bought and un-bossed.

Yet Perot never sought either major party’s nomination, preferring to run as an independent in November. Trump might bolt the GOP eventually despite his pledge not to. However, Trump knows, whatever the exit polls may eventually show about his independent run, he’ll be blamed if Hillary Clinton secures the White House in a three-way race.

History is a useful tool to try to determine what the future holds, but we can’t expect it to deliver a perfect facsimile. Although we have some idea of where the presidential race stands now, there are numerous twists and turns to come in the 2016 campaign.

