The 13 ‘Keys’ to Predicting Presidential Elections

Allan Lichtman has correctly predicted each presidential election since 1984 to talk about the 2020 election. Lichtman is an American historian who has taught at American University in Washington, D.C. since 1973.

Lichtman created The Keys to the White House model, which he created with Russian seismologist Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981. The model uses 13 True/False criteria to predict whether the candidate of an incumbent party will win or not.

If six or more of the statements are false, the party that’s not in the White House will win the popular vote, he says, and the model has worked since at least 1984.

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

Based on Lichtman’s model, Donald Trump will win re-election unless something drastic changes because only 4 of his 13 statements are false.

Lichtman’s model has successfully predicted the winner of the popular vote in every presidential election from 1984 to present, with the exception of 2000. In the contested election of 2000, the system predicted the popular vote winner, although not actual winners.

As a result in 2000, he predicted using his system that Gore would be the next president; Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral college.

In September 2016, the Keys forecast that Donald Trump would win the popular vote in the 2016 election, whereas he lost the popular vote, but won the electoral college.

However, as of August 5, 2020, Allan Lichtman predicts that Donald Trump will lose the 2020 United States presidential election to challenger Joe Biden based on seven of the thirteen keys of his prediction model turning false against the incumbent.