Will Obama break another record??

[old timey villain]

How's this for a political rule- Since 1916, an incumbent president has never been reelected a second time with a smaller PV percentage than he did the first time. When they're up for reelection, they either win by a bigger margin or they lose.

Some examples:

Eisenhower 1952: 55%
Eisenhower 1956: 57%

Reagan 1980: 50%
Reagan 1984: 58%

Clinton 1992: 43%
Clinton 1996: 49%

You could argue that FDR doesn't fit this trend, since he won by less his third and fourth times running, but his tenure was unprecedented.

So if Obama wins, will he be the first president since Wilson to gain a second term with less support than he did the first time? The polls look like it.

[old timey villain]

This has pointed out here before, though I can't find the thread.  Wilson also had a higher % of the popular vote his second time around, so I think you have to go all the way back to Andrew Jackson or so to find the last time an incumbent president won a second term with a smaller %age of the popular vote than the first time.

EDIT: And if you want the last time an incumbent president won a second term with both a reduced popular *and* electoral vote %age, I think you have to go back to James Madison....though I don't think every state had a popular vote tally back then.

Oh, you're right. I should have clarified. Wilson did win a larger percentage of the popular vote in 1916, but a smaller share of the electoral vote. Wilson basically dominated the map in 1912 due to Taft and Roosevelt splitting the Republican vote.

I guess that makes the trend even stronger. So if Obama does win with less than 53% of the vote, he'll break a 200 year streak.

[old timey villain]

Other two term presidents

Roosevelt 1932: 57%
Roosevelt 1936: 61%

Kennedy 1960: 49.7%
Johnson 1964: 61%

( I choose to include '60 and '64 in this trend because Kennedy was killed less than a year before the 1964 election. As a result, many of the votes for Johnson were also a vote in the memory of JFK. This can be debated of course.)

Nixon 1968: 43%
Nixon 1972: 61%

Bush 2000: 48%
Bush 2004: 51%

If this trend continues into 2012, one of two things will happen.

Scenario 1) Obama's current lead in the polls proves to be fleeting. Most undecideds and swing voters eventually break for Romney and Obama winds up with a PV similar to his approval ratings- somewhere in the mid to high 40s. Similar to Carter in 1980, who was leading or tied with Reagan until the week before the election. If Romney really goes balls to the wall in October and runs a great campaign, I could see this happening.

Scenario 2) Obama presides over a "new normal" (for now). Unemployment will remain high but Obama holds on to his 2008 coalition and wins over some new swing voters based on the perception that the economy is in fact improving. Obama is trusted to continue the recovery. Also, Romney runs a bad campaign. Most similar (although not very) to the 1984 election. Reagan wins by a larger margin despite a high unemployment rate (7.4%) based on the perception that the country was heading in the right direction.