Allan Lichtman has predicted (in a video produced by the New York Times) that Kamala Harris will win the presidential election. As I said in a previous post in 2020, Lichtman (a historian at American University) has persuaded me that he has the best model for predicting presidential elections based on his study of all the presidential elections since 1860. But there is one flaw in his model: although it almost perfectly predicts the popular vote winner, it cannot predict those cases where the loser in the popular vote wins in the Electoral College.
In 2000, he predicted that Al Gore would win, and indeed he did win the popular election by about 544,000 votes. But Gore lost the Electoral College by a narrow margin (271 for Bush, 266 for Gore). The Electoral College vote was decided when Florida's 25 electoral votes went to Bush. The U.S. Supreme Court halted the recount of votes in Florida with Bush leading Gore by 537 votes out of almost 6 million votes cast.
Lichtman tried to argue that his prediction was not a failure because he had correctly predicted Gore's popular vote victory. So, he seemed to concede that his model predicts the popular vote but not the Electoral College vote.
But then, in 2016, Lichtman became famous for predicting Trump's win, even though most people had predicted a Clinton win. Of course, Trump actually lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. So, in claiming that he had correctly predicted the election in 2016, Lichtman was contradicting what he had said in 2000--that his model only predicted the popular vote winner. Lichtman should have admitted that in 2016 his model failed to predict Clinton's popular vote win.
In 2020, Lichtman correctly predicted Biden's win, who won both the popular vote and the Electoral College.
In 2020, I argued that Lichtman needed to add a 14th Key to his "13 Keys to the White House" that would say "The likely voters for the incumbent party are evenly distributed across the states so as to minimize wasted votes in the Electoral College system." Answering yes to this statement would favor the incumbent party.
But now I see that this doesn't work as a modification of his model. Instead of that, I would suggest that he needs to add a qualifying statement to the model: This model predicts the popular vote winner in almost every case (except for elections like 2016), but it cannot predict when the popular vote winner is the loser in the Electoral College.
Lichtman is wrong, therefore, when he says: "Kamala Harris will be the next President of the United States." What he should say is: I predict that Kamala Harris will win the popular vote for President, but it is possible that Trump could still win the Electoral College.
The reason for this weakness in his model is that the Electoral College allows presidential elections to be decided by a few votes in a few key states in ways that are not predictable by any model of presidential elections. For example, in 2016, Trump won all 16 of the electoral votes for Michigan, even though he won by only 10,704 popular votes out of a total of 4,548, 382 votes. In 2020, Biden won all 16 of the electoral votes for Georgia, even though he won by only 11,779 votes out of a total of 4,935, 487 votes. The problem here is that the "winner-take-all" system of the Electoral College in most states (except for Nebraska and Maine) gives all of a state's electoral votes to the popular vote winner in the state, even when only a few thousand votes have made the difference, and thus the votes cast on the losing side have been wasted.
This obvious unfairness could be eliminated by either abolishing the Electoral College or by having state legislatures abolish the "winner-take-all" process for allocating electoral votes.
Let's turn now to Lichtman's model as applied to the 2024 presidential race.
Lichtman's fundamental insight--based on his study of presidential elections--is that voters in a presidential election are mostly judging the past performance of the incumbent party, and that what happens in the presidential campaign--campaign tactics, fluctuating polling, presidential debates, campaign fundraising, campaign advertising, and so on--don't really matter all that much, because all that matters for the voters--the past performance of the incumbent party--has been determined long before the campaign began. Of course, this contradicts what most political commentators assume, which is that the outcome depends upon the day-to-day events of the presidential campaign.
From his study of the history, as laid out in his book Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020 edition), Lichtman decided that there were 13 conditions that favor reelection of the incumbent party. These 13 conditions could be framed as 13 statements, so that when six or more of these statements are false, the incumbent party loses. Here I will state each of the keys followed by Lichtman's answer for 2024.
KEY 1 Incumbent party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.
False. Although the Democrats did better than expected in the 2022 midterms, they experienced a net loss in House seats.
KEY 2 Nomination contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.
True. Harris won her nomination without any contest for the nomination.
KEY 3 Incumbency: The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president.
False. The Democrats lost this key when Biden withdrew his candidacy for a second term.
KEY 4 Third party: There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.
True. With RFK Jr.'s withdrawal from third-party candidacy, this key goes to the Democrats.
KEY 5 Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
True. Despite the fact that some people have complained about the economy, there is no clear evidence of a recession.
KEY 6 Long-term economy: Real annual per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the two previous terms.
True. Growth during Biden's term has exceeded the growth over the two previous terms.
KEY 7 Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
True. Biden has made some major changes in policy--such as rejoining the Paris Accords on Climate Change, the CHIPS Bill, the Inflation Reduction and Climate Change Bill, and the Infrastructure Bill.
KEY 8 Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
True. Although there has been some social unrest associated with the pro-Palestine student protests, this has not been sustained over a long period.
KEY 9 Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
True. The attempts of the Republicans to find Biden guilty of some great scandal have failed. Hunter Biden's legal problems have not created a personal scandal for the President.
KEY 10 Foreign or military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
Undecided. It's not clear right now whether the Biden Administration's policy for a cease-fire in Gaza will fail.
KEY 11 Foreign or military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
Undecided. For the reason just indicated for foreign or military success.
KEY 12 Incumbent charisma: The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
False. Kamala Harris does not have a broadly bipartisan charismatic appeal (comparable to someone like Ronald Reagan).
KEY 13 Challenger charisma: The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
True. Although the cult of Trump treat him like a God, this is a narrow base in the electorate. Most voters find Trump repulsive rather than charismatic. This makes an interesting point about Trump's "populism"--contrary to his claim to speak for all or at least most of the people (the "true Americans"), he speaks only for a minority. That's the fundamental weakness in most populist movements.
This gives Harris and the Democrats eight true keys, and that's enough to win. Even if the two foreign policy keys were to flip to false, that would constitute only five false keys, not enough for the Republicans to win.
Lichtman Applies His 13 Keys to Harris, 1 Hour and 14 Minutes
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