New Delhi: With Donald Trump sweeping back to a second term in the White House, there have been wide speculations about why a key method used by a renowned American historian to correctly predict US presidential elections did not come true this time.
Allan Jay Lichtman, who served as a professor at the American University in Washington, had created The Keys to the White House methodology in 1981. It is a system that uses 13 true/false criteria to predict whether the presidential candidate of the incumbent party will win or lose the next election.
Lichtman is credited with correctly predicting the outcome of most of the presidential elections from 1984 through 2020 using the system, although his prediction system failed to predict the outcome of the electoral college in 2000 and now again in 2024.
The 13 keys are:
Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.
Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party’s nomination.
Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
Third-party: There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.
Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
Long-term economy: Annual real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
Policy change: The incumbent administration affects major changes in national policy.
Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
Scandal: The administration is untainted by major scandals.
Foreign/military failure: The administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
Foreign/military success: The administration achieves major success in foreign or military affairs.
Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
According to Lichtman’s system, if six or more of these keys are false, the incumbent party will lose the election. If fewer than six keys are false, the incumbent party will win.
Incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate in the middle of a high-pitched campaign replacing incumbent President Joe Biden. The reason cited was that Biden’s old age would not help in the fight against Republican and former President Donald Trump. However, Lichtman had predicted a Harris win even after the voting had ended and counting had begun.
It was only after the first trends started coming in that Lichtman realised that his 13 keys model is not working out. “Right now after a very long night I am taking some time off to assess why I was wrong and what the future holds for America,” Lichtman told USA Today on Wednesday morning when Trump’s second presidency was assured.
Apart from 2024, Lichtman’s only other wrong prediction came in 2000 when Republican George W Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore. So, which are the wrong keys that Lichtman played this time?
“This is not a question of Lichtman playing the wrong keys,” Robinder Sachdev, president of the New Delhi-based think tank Imagindia and a former student of American University, told ETV Bharat. “He applied the keys to the wrong lock.” Sachdev said that the US presidential election this time was extremely different from anything in history.
“His model could not have worked this time as it was an abnormal situation,” he said. “The Democrats changed their candidate in the middle of a campaign which is more or less unprecedented. Had it been a normal contest between Biden and Trump, Lichtman’s keys would have worked. The change of the Democrats’ candidate completely disrupted his model.”
Sachdev is of the view that Lichtman should not have applied his model in this election at all. “Remember, Harris was not elected as the Democratic candidate through the primaries as is the norm,” he explained.
Veteran Indian-origin journalist and author Mayank Chhaya was of the view that, beyond Lichtman’s model, people are missing out on the emotional content behind the election.
“It is hard for me to second-guess Professor Lichtman on the outcome of the US presidential election because he himself seems mystified,” Chhaya told ETV Bharat from Chicago Thursday evening. “Beyond the factors that go into Lichtman’s model, which employs 13 specific keys, I find many prognosticators and pollsters often miss out is the emotional content of the electorate.”
He explained that, in this election, one decisive issue was inflation, the cutting edge of which has been felt by Americans every day at grocery stores and gas stations.
“More often than not, what influences voters in any democracy anywhere, including in India, is what one feels in a particular moment, the emotional aspect of life,” Chhaya said. “For everyday survival, people feel the pinch of paying 30, 35 or even 40 percent more on domestic supplies. As they say in India, ‘aaloo, pyaz ke dam’ can decide elections.”
According to Chhaya, Lichtman’s model may not have sufficiently factored that in specific terms. “Inflation was a big deal where the Democrats slipped up badly,” he said. Chhaya also explained that the issue of survival of democracy in the US also came up strongly during this year’s campaign.
“Polls suggest that some 30 percent or so regarded that as an important factor right behind the economy as it manifests in inflation,” he said. “I don’t think Professor Lichtman’s model addresses those in a specific way. It is ironic that democracy being under assault was the key election point of the Democratic campaign which Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly focused on but Trump supporters turned it around to mean that if she won, she would curb their freedoms. It was an idea planted by Trump and his campaign.”
Chhaya further stated that Lichtman did not anticipate a broader coalition that Trump was able to build, especially co-opting Hispanic men.
“In many ways this election was a battle of the sexes - men for Trump, women for Harris,” he said. “Interestingly though, women under 30, who are the most vulnerable to the growing severe restrictions on abortion and other reproductive rights, did not come out in enough numbers despite Harris being the most vociferous champion of those. Finally, I believe what is at work here is the tribalising of America’s politics. When people vote along tribal lines, it is hard to find specific triggers.”
Meanwhile, Lichtman, on his X handle, has openly admitted that he was wrong in his prediction. “I will assess the election and the keys on my live show this Thursday at 9 PM Eastern (7:30 am IST Friday),” he stated and urged people to follow his YouTube channel. So, where did Lichtamn’s assessment, in his own words, go wrong? Watch this space.
