Trump on track for landslide win in 2020, according to multiple economic models that have consistently predicted presidential winners

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Donald Trump could sail to victory in the 2020 presidential elections despite historically low approval ratings and poor public support for his America First agenda.

Strong economic figures and the advantage of his incumbency could wave him back in, a report has concluded. The research looks at a set of economic models that have consistently predicted winners and losers in US presidential elections.

Mr Trump’s re-election could also be propelled by low petrol prices and unemployment numbers, as well as rising wages and other increasing growth rates.

Rather than focusing on polling and campaign trail data, many economic models that are successful in predicting presidential victors focus solely on figures such as GDP growth, disposable income, inflation, wage gains and tax burdens.

Still, the president’s prospects could suffer if the economy slows and unemployment rates begin to tick upwards, according to the models.

For example, a model produced by Trend Macrolytics, which showed Mr Trump winning in 2016 even when most polls had Hillary Clinton in the lead, shows the president securing a second term. It suggests he will win a landslide victory within the electoral college, securing an expected 294 votes.

“The economy is just so damn strong right now and by all historic precedent the incumbent should run away with it,” Donald Luskin, chief investment officer of Trend Macrolytics, told Politico.

He added: “I just don’t see how the blue wall could resist all that.”

Ray Fair, the Yale economist who spearheaded the creation of such economic models, echoed Mr Luskin’s predictions in the report, adding that his models showed the president securing a second term by a “fair margin”.

He said: “Even if you have a mediocre but not great economy – and that’s more or less consensus for between now and the election – that has a Trump victory and by a not-trivial margin,” he said.

Still, Mr Trump could face an uphill battle towards re-election thanks to a series of increasingly controversial federal investigations against him, as well as a growing pool of 2020 Democratic candidates vying to take him on.

A report on special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings on Russian election interference from the 2016 election could prove damaging to his total support ahead of the crucial vote, while new probes could be launched into alleged criminal misconduct on behalf of the president surrounding hush money payments to pornstar Stormy Daniels.

Mr Trump celebrated US economic numbers on Friday morning after the White House released a summary of the 2019 Economic Report of the President earlier this week.

“3.1 GDP FOR THE YEAR,” the president tweeted, “BEST NUMBER IN 14 YEARS!”