The Jobs Model of presidential election forecasting predicted well in 2004. The model,based on data available in August 2004, generated an error of only 1.3 percentage pointswhen forecasting the incumbent share of the two-party popular vote (Lewis-Beck and Tien2004). In contrast, the median forecast from seven teams of statistical modelers was off 2.6percentage points (Campbell 2004, 734). We believe that the Jobs Model was more accuratebecause it broadened measurement of economic performance, a conceptual variable lying at thecore of most of these efforts. Take, as a representative example, the Growth Model in Table1, Column 1. Its forecast for George W. Bush was 54.0% (almost exactly at the median for theabove-mentioned group of forecasters). This model was earlier reported by us, but rejectedon grounds of specification error (Lewis-Beck and Tien 2004, 754). We argued that thechanging nature of the American economy required attention to a hitherto neglectedvariable—job creation. When this variable, new jobs over the presidential term, is added tothe Growth Model, the fit statistics improve dramatically (see Table 1, Column 2,).