America, home to 328.2 million people.
Every four years, all the adults out of that 328.2 million people vote in the presidential election. In the 2020 election, the two people running for president are Joe Biden and the current president, Donald Trump. Currently the polls say that Joe Biden is in the lead, but the polls aren’t always right. For example, in 2016 Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump despite being ahead in the popular vote. BUT there is one person who thought that Donald Trump would win in 2016… in fact, he was certain. BUT HOW? Allan Jay Lichtman is an American historian who not only looks at the past, but the future as well.
“history tell us that voters are not fooled by the tricks of the campaign” says Allan Lichtman in a video with the New York times. He says that voters will vote depending on how well the current president has run the country. If the polls are supposedly worthless, how has he been predicting the winners of the presidential election for 40 years? That’s right, and he’s gotten it right EVERY SINGLE TIME! He and Vladimir Keilis-Borok (an expert in predicting earthquakes) came up with a system inspired by earthquake research.
This system is called “the keys to the White House”. Allan Lichtman has written a book about them, but we’ll give you the short version. There can be two different outcomes, stability where the party currently holding the White House stays there, and earthquake, when the opposing party takes over. Allan and Vladimir looked at every presidential election from the year 1860 (160 years ago!) to 1980 and they came up with 13 keys. They have gotten them right every year since.
OK, let’s go over what he covers in the video. Remember if the question answers true, it favours the reelection of the current White House party. If six or more answer false, you get a “political earthquake”
- Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. – FALSE
- Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. – TRUE
- Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. – TRUE
- Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign. – TRUE
- Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. – FALSE
- Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. – FALSE
- Policy change: The incumbent administration affects major changes in national policy. – TRUE
- Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term. – FALSE
- Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. – FALSE
- Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. – TRUE
- Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. –FALSE
- Incumbent (party) charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. – FALSE
- Challenger (party) charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. – TRUE
That means that the keys predict that Trump will lose the White House. But at the end of the day, its up to america.
