Despite the necessary formality of counting the votes in November, the outcome of the US presidential election has already been determined. Governor George W Bush, the Republican candidate, cannot overcome the answer to the fundamental question of presidential politics: are you better off than you were four years ago? The answer - a resounding yes - virtually guarantees that Mr Al Gore, the vice-president, will be elected the 43rd president. It will not be close.

Eight years ago, during the 1992 campaign, I predicted on these pages that Mr Bush's father, the incumbent, would lose to Bill Clinton. That election, like almost all peacetime contests, came down to one deciding factor: the economy.

To gauge the electorate's satisfaction with the economy, I constructed a measure of "feel-good" consumption. This measure subtracts from per capita consumption spending those categories that contribute little to consumer satisfaction: outlays for household utilities, some transport costs (including commuting expenses and car repair), medical costs (including insurance premiums), legal fees and education.

The rule of thumb is that the incumbent party should be exploring alternative employment when the four-year growth in feel-good consumption drops below 6 per cent.

The 1992 Bush-Clinton contest is instructive. The incumbent ran on an impressive record. But being the hero of Kuwait, presiding over the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War, reducing the nuclear threat, and being morally upright and generally likeable were not persuasive when living standards had stalled.

Voters liked him, admired him, and could not wait to be rid of him.

In the 2000 campaign, the circumstances are very different. Feel-good consumption has been rising at its most rapid rate of the post-war period. Simultaneously, low unemployment and inflation combined with robust productivity gains have pushed real wage growth up sharply.

Wealth has also recorded extraordinary gains, reflecting ebullient share-price growth (especially for the rich) and rising house prices (for nearly everybody else).

The party will continue at least through the balance of the year. The US Federal Reserve, wanting a slowdown, not recession, will continue to err on the side of caution.

In addition, strong real-wage growth and the huge build-up of wealth in the 1990s will keep consumer spending robust through any stock market corrections.

Mr Gore will be running on feel-good consumption growth in excess of 4 per cent a year. Over the previous six presidential terms, living standards rose just over 1 per cent a year. For most voters, it has never been this good and they know it. Their political wish-list is short: make it continue.

The intractable problem for Governor Bush is that voters do not know why things got so good. They are not working that much harder; their bosses have not become that much smarter. It may be Mr Alan Greenspan. It may be the Internet. It may be luck. It may be Mr Clinton. In their ignorance, their strategy is simple: do not change anything. Mr Clinton is, of course, unable to serve a third term; but Mr Gore is a close, perhaps improved, substitute.

Republican hopes rest heavily on revolt by voters against sexual scandal in the White House. Voters were appalled but will not revolt. In a contest with record feel-good consumption, "Clinton fatigue" will turn out to be feeble stuff.

Indeed, we had a preview of that contest in the 1998 impeachment debate and trial. Despite being repelled by vivid depictions of presidential misconduct, public support for retaining Mr Clinton in office did not falter. Had feel-good consumption growth in 1998 been running at a rate closer to 1 per cent a year, rather than 4 per cent, Mr Gore would be campaigning today as the incumbent.

Mr James Annable is director of economics at Bank One.

Growth in Feel-Good Consumption

(Inflation adjusted, per capita)

Term President%

1961-64 Kennedy/

Johnson (D)11.3 1965-68 Johnson (D)17.7 1969-72 Nixon (R)11.9 1973-76 Nixon/Ford (R)5.6 1977-80 Carter (D)4.2 1981-84 Reagan (R)11.6 1985-88 Reagan (R)11.6 1989-92 Bush (R)0.4 1993-96 Clinton (D)8.4 1997-99 Clinton (D)18.4*

* Four-year rate