US 2020 Presidential Election Predictions

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Allan Lichtman's Check Box System

Professor Allan Lichtman in July 2020, updated his model, and now predicts Joe Biden will win the election. I like the quote from Lichtman that "the presidency is for the incument to lose." The only key that Democrats can take credit for is gaining members in the House of Representatives. Trump gains one "true" because Biden is not charismatic. It is likely that most incumbents will have true's for #2, #3 and #4, so Trump has 4 "true's" without doing anything except being an incumbent. Trump gains 2 more true's (#7, #10), but it's not enough to push him over the threshold.

He has a short clip which explains his prediction:

New York Times, He Predicted Trump’s Win in 2016. Now He’s Ready to Call 2020. Most historians just study the past. But Allan Lichtman has successfully predicted the future.

Lichtman in the New York Times brief video clip explains his ratings. Certainly the Trump "charisma" is open to discussion. Litchman defends his false rating, in saying that Trump is an excellent showman, but his charisma seems narrowly focused.

  Definition Rating
1: 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
2. Contest There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. True
3. Incumbency The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. True
4. Third Party There is no significant third party or independent campaign (more than 5%). True
5. Short-term economy The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. False
6. Long-term economy Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. False
7. Policy change The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. True
8. Social unrest There is no sustained social unrest during the term. False
9. Scandal The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. False
10. Foreign/ military failures The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. True
11. Foreign/ military successes The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. False
12. Incumbent charisma The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. False
13. Challenger charisma The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. True

 

True: 6 keys, False 7 keys. Trump loses because there are 7 false keys. Anytime there are 6 or more "false" answers, the incumbent will lose according to Lichtman. So, Trump exceeded the false count by 2. The collapse of the economy due to the Covid-19 lockdown has reduced Trump's score by 2 keys. The protests following the death of George Floyd qualifies as social unrest. The most subjective key are #11 and #12 in my opinion.

Links:

Lichtman, A. The Keys to the White House, 2008.

Feb 29, 2020, : Professor with history of correctly predicting elections says it's 'the incumbent's election to lose'. The Hill.

 

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