At its most basic level, the Economic Expectations and Time-for-a-Change Model performed well in that it successfully forecast a Barack Obama victory. It was in estimating the two-party vote that the model underperformed. The point estimate was off by just under five percentage points. While not terrible, the model did not perform as well as it did in earlier years.

The results from previous years show no readily discernable pattern to the model's mis-estimates. There are some comparatively large misses in recent years, but there are some similarly sized misses in the early years. Looking at whether the incumbent is running for reelection does not seem to help in explaining the errors in the model.

The forecast for the House elections lends additional support for the model. The equation forecast a 25-seat loss for the Republican Party. As of this writing, the Republicans have lost 21 seats. Moreover, the Democratic candidates are ahead in a few of the remaining uncalled races. If their leads hold, then the Republican Party's losses will track even closer to the forecast. Here, both the economy and the number of open seats appear to be of great consequence.

The presidential and House forecasts show that a relatively simple model estimated more than four months before the election (before either of the conventions and before the financial panic) does a reasonable job of forecasting the election outcomes. We should note that including the outcomes for 2008 does not alter the coefficients in a substantively important manner. Elections are comprehensible and predictable.