Abramowitz graduated with a B.A. with high honors in political science from the University of Rochester in 1969. He attended graduate school at Stanford University, completing an M.A. in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1976. Abramowitz' dissertation was entitled An Assessment of Party and Incumbent Accountability in Midterm Congressional Elections.[2]
Abramowitz has authored or co-authored five books. His 1992 book co-authored with Jeff Segal of Stony Brook University, Senate Elections, written in 1992, received two awards from political science associations and remains one of the seminal works in the study of senatorial elections to this day. Abramowitz has written extensively on many disparate topics in American politics, including presidential, Senate and House of Representatives elections, activism, polarization, ideology, partisanship, ideological realignment, incumbency, and redistricting.
Time-for-change model
In 1988, Abramowitz devised a model, which he termed the "time-for-change model", for predicting the outcome of the popular vote in United States presidential elections.[3] The model makes its prediction based on only three inputs: "the growth rate of the economy during the second quarter of the election year, the incumbent president's approval rating at mid-year, and the length of time the incumbent president's party has controlled the White House." The last of these is what Abramowitz dubbed "the time-for-change factor", arguing that the longer a political party controls the presidency, the more likely the other party will be to win it back, since "voters attach a positive value to periodic alternation in power by the two major parties".[4]
Abramowitz's model was correct in every presidential election from 1988 until 2016, when it predicted that Donald Trump would win the popular vote; he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, although he did win the Electoral College. In May 2016, Abramowitz had predicted that Clinton would win the popular vote by an even larger margin, stating that his model assumed that both political parties would nominate mainstream candidates and that Trump broke this assumption.[5]
Select publications
Books
Abramowitz, Alan I.; Rapoport, Ronald B.; McGlennon, John (1981). Party activists in Virginia: a study of delegates to the 1978 senatorial nominating conventions. Charlottesville: Institute of Government, University of Virginia. OCLC7645639.
Available online as: Abramowitz, Alan I.; Rapoport, Ronald B.; McGlennon, John (1986). "Table of contents". The Life of the Parties: Activists in Presidential Politics. University Press of Kentucky. JSTORj.ctt130jbn7. Project Muse.
Abramowitz, Alan I. (2010). The disappearing center: engaged citizens, polarization, and American democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN9780300162882.
Abramowitz, Alan I. (2018). The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN9780300207132.
Abramowitz, Alan I.; Webster, Steven (March 2016). "The rise of negative partisanship and the nationalization of U.S. elections in the 21st century". Electoral Studies. 41: 12–22. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.001.
^"Humphries, Jane, 1948–". Library of Congress. Retrieved 15 March 2017. data sheet (b. Dec. 1, 1947)
^Abramowitz, Alan Ira (1976). An assessment of party and incumbent accountability in midterm congressional elections (PhD thesis). Stanford University. OCLC27994633.
