It’s almost unheard of for an economic slump to occur in a presidential election year. In the last century, it has only happened twice — in 1932 and 1980 — and both times the incumbent president and his party were handed a decisive defeat. That’s what everybody mostly remembers about Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.

Washington is nothing if not a self-preservation society: politicians and policymakers do everything they can to avoid having the bottom of an economic cycle hit in the months just before voters go to the polls to choose a new president.

But despite the best efforts of the Federal Reserve and Congress, which have both moved with uncommon swiftness to provide hefty monetary and fiscal stimulus, it now looks more likely than not that the nation is about to go through a recession this year in which economic activity could well be falling into the summer, perhaps longer. It may already be in one.

Nobody welcomes a recession, but for the Democrats that probability might be considered good news. And even if the economy skirts a formal recession and only undergoes a more modest slowdown before rebounding later this year, voters are likely to blame the weak economy mostly on the Republicans, who are all but certain to be led in November by Senator John McCain. It doesn't make much difference that President Bush will not be on the ballot.

“Under that scenario, a lot of very favourable non-economic things would have to happen for the Republicans to win,” said Ray C Fair, a Yale economist who is the leading expert on how the economy’s performance affects election outcomes. “If we have a recession, even a mild and short one, the unemployment rate will be rising this fall. The Democratic candidate will be hammering on the economy and Republicans will be very much on the defensive.”

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