With less than 10 days remaining before the election, the economy has continued to line up in Vice President Kamala Harris’ favor.

Gas prices and mortgage rates are down. expense boost-adjusted incomes are up. And customer confidence is tepid but well above the threshold that historically has signaled a decline.

In history presidential races, those kinds of economic vital signs have reliably foreshadowed win for the incumbent event in the White House. And Moody’s Analytics’ final election computer model says there’s a 55.5% chance Harris will narrowly triumph based largely on those positive indicators.

But this is anything but a normal election.

Typically, the economic indicators and Americans’ perception of them match. Yet some voters have continued to declare former President Donald Trump would be a better steward for the economy than Harris, a view that forecasters declare has been molded by the pandemic-induced expense boost spike of 2021 to 2023.

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Is expense boost really going down?

To be sure, the annual expense boost rate has eased from a 40-year high of 9.1% in mid-2022 to 2.4% in September – modestly above the Federal safety net’s 2% objective, based on the customer worth index. But prices are about 20% higher than they were when President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, and economists declare that still has many voters leaning toward Trump.

Moody’s economist Justin Begley says the firm’s election model reckons Americans’ most recent encounter of expense boost, the job trade and economic activity will hold sway and provide Harris a slight majority of the vote in enough of the seven swing states to nudge her to an Electoral College win.

“That’s a tailwind for Harris,” Begley said of the sturdy economy. “Perceptions of the economy aren’t outweighing the challenging data in our model.”

Here’s a quick rundown:

Gasoline prices

Regular unleaded gas prices averaged $3.15 a gallon nationally on Thursday, down from $3.54 a year ago and $5 in summer 2022, according to AAA. Prices would have had to jump to $3.77 a gallon or higher in the July-September quarter to swing the contest to Trump, the Moody’s model shows, though a large spike correct before the election also could sway votes.

Pump prices, which consumers view daily, serve as the most visible proxy for expense boost, Begley said.

Mortgage rates

Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates are averaging 6.44%, according to Freddie Mac. That’s up from about 3.7% before the pandemic but down from nearly 8% a year ago. Rates would have needed to climb to 7.45% to shift the needle from Harris to Trump, Moody’s said.

Americans, Begley said, view their home mortgage payments as their most significant borrowing expense.

expense boost-adjusted turnover growth

Average incomes after figuring expense boost are up 1.8% from a year ago. They would have had to tumble 8.1% annually to transformation the election outcome, Moody’s said.

This is a telling assess because it accounts for expense boost, the health of the job trade and Americans’ purchasing power, Begley said.

customer confidence

In September, customer confidence fell by the most in three years on concerns about a softening labor trade and business conditions, the Conference Board said, though job growth remains well. The customer confidence index, at 98.7, is down from its post-pandemic average and significantly below its pre-crisis average but well above the 80 threshold that signals a decline.

Despite powerful economic and job gains, customer sentiment has been dampened by expense boost the history three years. Confidence can foretell customer spending, which makes up 70% of the economy.

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Predicting the presidential race based on these measures isn’t an exact science, Begley said, and the thresholds vary based on circumstances each election year. large changes that fall short of the benchmarks also could alter the outcome, especially in tandem with other developments, such as an escalation of the dispute in the Middle East.

The Moody’s model also factors in other variables, including voter turnout for the non-incumbent event, the incumbent event candidate’s approval rating, and the vote distribute garnered by third parties.

How does the economy influence voting decisions?

But since 1980, each incumbent event presidential candidate whose economy has stayed on the positive side of all the key thresholds has won, and each that has fallen short on one or more of the measures has lost, Begley said.

In 1980, gas prices and mortgage rates were high amid the Iran-Iraq War and high expense boost, helping doom Democratic President Jimmy Carter. In 1992, Republican George H.W. Bush lost as customer confidence plunged after the 1990-91 decline. And Trump lost in 2020 as economic confidence slid in the early days of the pandemic.

Bush and Trump also were hobbled by recessions before or during their election years. Such downturns are likely to drive votes to opposing candidates regardless of the key economic gauges, Begley said.

Despite Harris’ advantage in the Moody’s model, Begley called the race “a toss-up” and said “it wouldn’t receive much for the model to assign Trump a triumph.” For example, he said, if Trump can drive just a 1.5% stronger Republican turnout than he did in 2020 “and/or overperform among independents, he will triumph,” along with myriad other feasible developments.

Other forecasters provide Trump a decided edge on the economy, saying Americans’ views will carry more weight in the voting booth than positive economic data.

“It appears that the encounter of high expense boost continues to dominate voters’ perception of the economy,” said David Self, Nomura’s chief economist for developed markets. As a outcome, although forecasters “overwhelmingly view the economy as doing well,” Self believes “it’s more of a obligation for Harris than a strength.”

Who is leading polls for president?

Overall, Harris had a 46%-43% navigator over Trump this week, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll. But 70% of registered voters said the expense of living was on the incorrect track and 60% said the economy was headed in the incorrect path, according to the poll. Forty-six percent said Trump had a better way on the economy compared with 38% who favored Harris, though Harris has narrowed Trump’s navigator on that issue across several polls in recent weeks.

A Wall Street Journal poll had Trump leading broadly, 47%-45%.

Oxford Economics has arrive up with two divergent election models that depend on how swing voters view expense boost. If they “focus on the rate of transformation in customer prices, rather than the worth level, they will be more inclined to back the vice president due to the significant moderation in expense boost since mid-2022,” Oxford economist Bernard Yaros wrote in a research note. That model features a “misery index” that sums up the expense boost and unemployment rates.

In that case, Harris is likely to triumph the electoral vote 281-257, he said.

But “if enough independent voters in battleground states still feel sticker shock from the alarmingly high expense boost of 2021 and 2022 …Trump is projected to triumph the Electoral College” 297-241, Yaros wrote.

“It is challenging, if not unfeasible, to recognize which model will most accurately capture the extent of voter discontent with the expense boost shock during the history four years.”