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This will be the first time Americans will be voting for president during a recession in 48 years. The National Bureau of Economic Research hasn’t officially declared this a recession, but I’m assuming they’re mark the beginning of this current recession as starting sometime in the second quarter. If I had to guess, I’d say May or June.

NBER has the dates of recessions going back to 1854 and this is the longest stretch without a recession election.

Here are the previous recession elections:

1860
1876
1884
1896
1900
1920
1932
1948
1960

Several of those are now viewed as pretty historic elections. Notice how often there was a change of parties. It’s also pretty amazing how Harry Truman pulled it off 60 years ago.

Posted by edelfenbein at October 31, 2008 9:53 PM