meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
EconTalk

David Brady on the Electorate and the Elections of 2010 and 2012

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.74.3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2011

⏱️ 67 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

David Brady of Stanford University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the lessons of the election of 2010 and what we might expect from the elections of 2012. Brady draws on political history as well as survey results from work with colleagues Doug Rivers and Morris Fiorina to speculate about the elections of 2012. Along the way he discusses the power of the independent vote, how ObamaCare affected the election of 2010, and the prospects for the Republican nominee in 2012. Taped a few days before the deal on the debt was reached, Brady gives his thoughts on the politics of the negotiations. The conversation concludes with a discussion of whether Obama will have a primary challenger.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts

0:13.9

of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org

0:21.2

where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and find links to

0:26.5

other information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mailadicontalk.org. We'd

0:33.6

love to hear from you. Today is July 29th, 2011, and my guest is David Brady, the Davies family

0:43.8

senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the Bowen H and Janice Arthur are quite

0:48.3

professor of political science and leadership values in the Stanford Graduate School of Business,

0:53.5

and just a mere professor of political science here at Stanford. Dave, welcome back to

0:57.2

Econ Talk. Thanks for having me. It's July 29th. We're taping this maybe four days before

1:04.1

the debt ceiling is supposed to be reached. We're not sure what's going to happen. We're

1:09.5

living in fascinating political times. What I want to do in this podcast is take a broad

1:14.0

look at the last three years of presidential and congressional politics. Talk about where

1:18.5

the electorate is now, and then maybe hear your speculations about where we might be headed.

1:24.8

A year ago, we spoke August of 2010. It was about three months before the midterm elections.

1:32.4

You said that a typical Democratic president in midterm elections loses about 30 seats.

1:38.0

You then talked about why that could be misleading. Yet, formal models of midterm elections

1:45.5

by academic political scientists did predict in roughly that range. They all systematically

1:51.4

underestimated what turned out to be the outcome, which I think was a law of 63 seats for

1:56.1

the Democrats. What happened and why did those models fail?

2:01.9

Those models failed because they essentially built into them that Congresswoman acted rationally.

2:11.6

That is, that the members voted in line with what their constituents wanted.

2:16.2

I think with the idea that they wanted to be reelected. So I thought that would be the highest

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.