The Keys to the White House: Allan Lichtman's Forecast for 2020, in the Harvard Data Science Review

The Keys to the White House: Forecast for 2020

by Allan J. Lichtman
Published on
Oct 27, 2020

last released
5 hours ago

The Keys to the White House: Forecast for 2020

ABSTRACT

The Keys to the White House is a historical-based index system for predicting the results of American presidential elections that has been successful since 1984. The Keys system gauges the strength and performance of the party holding the White House. If six or more Keys turn against the White House party, they are predicted losers. With seven negative keys lined up against him, the Keys predict that Donald Trump will become the first president since George H. W. Bush in 1992 to lose a reelection bid.

{snip}

2. An Unprecedented Reversal of Fortune

In late 2019, with the presidential election less than a year away, President Donald Trump was likely cruising to a second term in office, according to my Keys to the White House model. Then, a few months later, everything changed when two national crises converged on America: the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests against racial injustice. These extraordinary events and President Trump’s feckless response have put his reelection in jeopardy, according to the Keys. Not since the Keys were first applied to presidential elections in 1860 (retrospectively), has such a dramatic reversal of fortune on the system occurred in just a few months.

{snip}

5. The Keys in 2019

At the end of 2019, it appeared that with four Keys turned against him, Trump was still two Keys short of a predicted defeat.

• Mandate Key 1: Republicans lost a net of 41 U.S. House seats in the midterm elections of 2018, losing control of the chamber and this Key.

• Scandal Key 9: When the Democratic majority made Donald Trump only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached by the full House of Representatives, this Key turned against him.

• Foreign/Military Success Key 11: Trump’s most important foreign/military initiatives have failed, in Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Ukraine. The assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani lacked a coherent follow-up strategy and was quickly forgotten.

• Incumbent Charisma Key 12: Trump is a consummate showman who commands media attention but appeals only to a narrow slice of the electorate rather than achieving broad appeal like Ronald Reagan. In most polls, Trump’s strong approval rating has hovered near only 30 percent; 60 percent or more of the American people have said that he is not honest and trustworthy, and that they don’t like him personally.

{snip}