Allan Lichtman is the American University history professor and well known political prognosticator who has correctly called every presidential election since 1984 — except one. In 1984, he developed a system composed of thirteen “keys” in collaboration with Valdimir Keilis-Borok, a Russian mathematical geophysicist. The keys are true-or-false questions, and eight or more “true” answers is predictive of the outcome of a presidential election.
Lichtman has called the 2024 presidential race for Kamala Harris.
For most people who follow politics, Lichtman’s current prediction seems counterintuitive. However, he called the 2016 election for Trump, and the 2020 election for Biden. Both predictions seem to soundly disprove what sentiment seems to indicate. But, applying an intuition informed by a career of professional investigatory practice, and the street sense acquired by long years of answering calls for service, for me something just doesn’t smell right.
In 2016, Trump was clearly the superior candidate, and handily trounced Hillary during debate performances and on policy. Moreover, Americans had grown weary of Obama’s policies of “radical transformation,” and his anemic economy. The 2020 election cycle was characterized by massive mail in ballot hucksterism as well as Democrat pollster shenanigans. Trump had delivered a roaring economy, featuring historic energy independence, not to mention peace in the Middle East, and a host of other significant successes. All of this runs counter to Lichtman’s thesis.
Lichtman’s Thirteen Keys were presented in an........