A HISTORIAN who has predicted the outcomes of presidential elections for 40 years said he doesn’t expect to be thanked by Donald Trump after Americans go to the polls in November....CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Allan Lichtman, the mastermind behind the 13-point Keys to the White House algorithm, stopped short of making a decisive call, warning the election is unpredictable.
America faces its first presidential rematch since the 1950s, with Joe Biden and Trump the frontrunners for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations.
But Lichtman told The U.S. Sun that the Republicans have lots to worry about heading into the election. The scholar received a signed photo from Trump after predicting his stunning 2016 White House victory.
He was one of the few experts who predicted Trump’s shock win. When asked ifhistory could repeat itself, Lichtman said, “I doubt it, but you never know.” Lichtman described the political climate as unpredictable.
“2024 is very unpredictable, but so was 2020,” he said. “I agonized over it and didn’t make a call until September of election year. 2024 certainly poses a lot of challenges because the domestic and international situation is so fluid.”
Trump could be hit with a criminal conviction just months before Americans go to the polls, for example. He has been indicted four times and is juggling court appearances with rallies on the campaign.
Lichtman hasn’t yet made a definitive prediction this year, but he alluded to the areas where Biden has an advantage.
This is despite the persistent speculation over whether the commander-in-chief is up to the job. Lichtman’s Keys to the White House formula consists of 13 true or false statements.
If five or fewer statements are false, the incumbent party is predicted to win. But if six or more statements are false, then the sitting president is poised to lose.
Lichtman has correctly predicted the outcome of presidential elections since 1984. In 2000, he said Al Gore would win the popular vote, which was true.
However, George W. Bush ultimately prevailed in the Electoral College after the Supreme Court’s controversial Bush v. Gore ruling that halted ballot recounting in Florida.
Lichtman claimed Gore lost because of improper ballot counting in the state, and he still stands by his prediction.
Florida
would have tipped Gore above the 270 Electoral College votes required to win the White House. Lichtman revealed the best chance of the Democrats winning in November is with Biden at the helm.
“One of my keys is incumbency, Biden secures that. Another one of my keys is an internal party battle, Biden secures that,” he said.
“It means six of the remaining 11 keys would have to fall to predict a White House defeat. “If Biden doesn’t run, the party loses the incumbency and the party battle key as there is no heir apparent.
“So that’s two keys down and they would only need four more keys out of the remaining 11 to be predicted losers.” The social unrest key hasn’t turned, according to Lichtman, and Republicans haven’t yet pinned a scandal on Biden.
“The Republicans have been trying for years. It’s unlikely they’ll find anything,” Lichtman said. “There has to be a widespread recognition of scandal. It cannot just be one party mongering a scandal against the other.”
Several keys could still go either way, and Lichtman warned that the Biden team shouldn’t be complacent. In comparison, Trump has picked up around three keys.
The Democrats have fewer seats in the House than they did before the midterms. The administration hasn’t yet had a major foreign policy success and Biden isn’t charismatic, according to Lichtman’s algorithm.
“There are still many keys that are outstanding that could sink Biden’s candidacy,” Lichtman said. “They should not be complacent but they should campaign on governing.”
It’s not yet known whether the American economy will go into recession, but that could change in the run-up to the election. The foreign policy or military failure key has not yet turned, according to Lichtman.
Biden was slammed by both Democrats and Republicans for how the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan unfolded.
But Lichtman said the saga has been pretty much forgotten so it wouldn’t be enough to flip the foreign policy failure key. Biden’s challenger is uncharismatic, according to the Keys, even though Trump is a showman.
“His appeal is narrow to a particular base. You don’t see a lot of Trump Democrats,” Lichtman said. “None of the Republican candidates come close to having the extraordinary, broad, inspirational appeal of a Franklin Roosevelt or a Ronald Reagan.”
Still, it won’t be the polls or the campaigns that determine the election, according to Lichtman. “It’s going to turn on the economy, it’s going to turn on the two wars that are raging,” he said.
“It’s going to turn on whether we continue to have domestic tranquility and the absence of a real scandal – not anything any candidate is going to say or do in the campaign.
“Trying to predict elections based upon the campaign leads you down the Primrose path to failure.” Current general election polls look gloomy for the Biden team.
An average of surveys compiled by Real Clear Politics put Trump two percentage points ahead of Biden in the popular vote. Biden looks up against it in the swing states also.
In a head-to-head contest, Trump is ahead in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, per RCP averages. Trump lost all five states in 2020, while Biden is ahead by less than one percentage point in Pennsylvania on average…CONTINUE READING>>
