A historian who has correctly predicted every presidential election since 1984 has declared that “a lot would have to go wrong” for Joe Biden to lose to Donald Trump… in November.
Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, D.C., devised a system, which he calls the “13 Keys,” and wrote a book in the 1980s explaining the idea.
He says the technique allows him to “predict the outcome of the popular vote based solely on historical factors and not the use of candidate preference polls, tactics or campaign events.”
Even though polls show Biden in trouble nationally and in several swing states, Lichtman believes it’s still in the president’s favor to keep the job, and two of his 13 keys (the lack of a serious primary challenge and the ownership) are already in favor of Biden.
“It’s two keys from the top,” he said. “That means six more keys would have to fall to predict their defeat. “A lot of things would have to go wrong for Biden to lose.”
A historian who has correctly predicted every presidential election since 1984 has declared that “a lot would have to go wrong” for Joe Biden to lose to Donald Trump in November.
Even though polls show Biden in trouble nationally and in several swing states, Lichtman believes it’s still in the president’s favor to keep the job, and two of his 13 keys (the lack of a serious primary challenge and the ownership) are already in favor of Biden.
Lichtman correctly predicted that Trump would win in 2016 and that Biden would win in 2020.
Lichtman is unimpressed by polls showing Trump being competitive or beating Biden nationally and in key states.
“They are hypnotized by the wrong thing, which is the polls,” he said. “First of all, polls six or seven months before the election have no predictive value.”
That doesn’t mean the Biden campaign can act as if they’re certain to repeat victory.
“It’s always possible that there could be a sufficiently catastrophic event outside the range of the keys that could affect the election and here we have, for the first time, not only a former president but a major party candidate on trial and who knows “. If he is convicted (and there is a good chance he will be), that could complicate things.”
Lichtman claims that the COVID-19 pandemic was a historical event that made him predict Biden’s victory in 2020.
“The pandemic is what killed him,” he said. The Guardian.
‘He congratulated me for predicting it but I didn’t understand the keys. The key message is that what counts is governance, not campaigns, and instead of substantially addressing the pandemic, as we know, he thought he could get out of it with words and that sank him.”
However, there are some keys that work in Trump’s favor when analyzing the race.
Joe Biden is seen with Allan Lichtman, holding a copy of his book. Lichtman believes signs show 2024 will trend in Biden’s favor
Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, DC, devised a system, which he calls the ’13 Keys,’ and wrote a book in the 1980s explaining the idea.
One of the keys is a major outside challenger, which may be Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s role in the race.
Two of the keys have to do with the economy and, although the numbers have trended in Biden’s favor, he has not yet seen his approval rating increase.
Social unrest is another key working against Biden, as university campuses are now a hotbed of anti-Israel protests and many young people refer to the president as ‘Genocide Joe’.
Both the charisma of the incumbent and the charisma of the challenger are also considered key, and while many feel both candidates are too old, age appears to be more of a factor against Biden than Trump.
It should be noted that while Lichtman was technically wrong in 2000, predicting that Al Gore would win, he believes it was a stolen election and said Gore won the popular vote.
However, he also takes credit for predicting Trump’s victory in 2016 despite Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote.
He admits that, regardless of the outcome, no system can be completely infallible.
“It’s stressful because there are a lot of people who would love to see me fail.” What if he does? ‘I’m human. That doesn’t mean my system is bad. Nothing is perfect in the human world.’