Throughout Trump’s journey from reality TV star to fringe candidate to primary frontrunner to General Election underdog, he upended much of the conventional wisdom about American politics. Yet his route to victory turned out to be quite conventional. Decades of research on presidential elections have taught us two clear lessons. First, in the words of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign advisors, “it’s the economy, stupid.” One of the strongest predictors of presidential election results in November is the American economy’s growth rate in the spring. Though the American economy has been growing since the end of the global recession, its resurgence has been slower than expected and unevenly distributed across the nation. Donald Trump’s frankly stated critique of all that was still going wrong for the American worker resonated across the “rust belt” from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Wisconsin, states that have seen many manufacturing jobs disappear in recent decades. Voters may not have known exactly what either candidate would deliver in the future, so judging the two parties on their past performance in managing the economy was a rational response.

在特朗普从真人秀明星到边缘候选人再到初选领先者再到大选落败者的整个过程中，他颠覆了美国政治的许多传统智慧。然而，他走向胜利的道路却是非常传统的。几十年来对总统选举的研究给了我们两个明确的教训。首先，用比尔·克林顿1992年竞选顾问的话来说，“这是经济问题，笨蛋。”11月总统大选结果最有力的预测因素之一是美国经济在春季的增长率。尽管自全球经济衰退结束以来，美国经济一直在增长，但其复苏速度慢于预期，且分布不均。唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）坦率地发表了对美国工人仍在犯错的批评，这在近几十年来许多制造业工作岗位消失的宾夕法尼亚州、俄亥俄州和威斯康星州的“铁锈带”上引起了共鸣。选民可能还不知道这两位候选人在未来会做出什么样的贡献，因此根据两党过去在管理经济方面的表现来判断两党是一种理性的反应。