Obama is the incumbent. The economy is growing at a moderate pace. There’s no serious third-party challenge. We’re not losing massive numbers of soldiers in a foreign war. And when you look at those fundamentals, the reality is this: Incumbent presidents very, very rarely lose under those conditions.
I recently had to study this fairly closely in order to build the Wonkblog election model. The results seemed too optimistic for the president: At very modest levels of economic growth, the model would predict a win. But the model was picking up something real. Since 1948, only three incumbent presidents have lost reelection campaigns: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Carter and Bush both ran in very bad economies. Ford was a bit of an odd case, as he took office after Richard Nixon resigned over Watergate.
SOURCE: Why isn’t Obama getting crushed right now? – The Washington Post.