Almost exactly one year ago, we wrote that 2024 would be the busiest political year on record and it certainly has delivered, including these main highlights.
The Taiwanese election in January 2024
Indian elections in April/May
European Parliamentary elections in June
The US Presidential Election in November.
So with the main events of 2024 now in the rearview mirror we can conclude that this has been a catastrophic year for incumbents at elections.
And not just in the US where Democrats have lost ground relative to four years earlier, but incumbents have also lost ground in the UK, France, India, Japan and South Africa as well this year.
It gets worse: an even more amazing stat comes from the FT, which reports that every governing party facing election in a developed country this year lost vote share, the first time this has ever happened! According to Deutsche Bank, it’s also the first time since the late 1800s that the incumbent party in the White House has lost three consecutive presidential elections.
The fact that this is the first time in over 120 years that the US incumbent party has lost three times in a row might hint at a more structural problem where politicians are unable to deliver against expectations in a world of lower growth and fairly regular shocks.
A smaller share of the electorate vote the same way all the time, meaning it’s easier to see big swings from one election to the next, as there’s now more swing voters up for grabs.
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