Allan Lichtman as of the 6th was still predicting a Trump win

[bigdarryl]

But.that is based on Gary Johnson getting 5 percent of the popular vote on election day.Which make 6 keys against the party in the WH.Personally I think he spoke to soon Johnson isn't going to get 5 percent of the vote. Johnson polling average is between 7 and 8 percent if we follow Lichtmans 3rd party rule to cut those numbers in half it"s between 3.5 to 4 percent plus Lichtman is trying to have it both ways by saying Trump is so toxic he might defy the key system so that way if Trump doesn't win the popular vote he will be covered.http://www.businessinsider.com/r-a-trump-victory-would-upset-the-verdict-of-history-allan-lichtman-2016-10

[Drunken Irishman]

1. The problem with Lichtman's The Keys to the White House is that this is an extraordinary election.

It's unlike anything we've seen before.

I don't think his 13 questions are wrong, as in a traditional election, they generally can point to the climate that delivers a popular vote victory/defeat to the incumbent party (and he only does say popular vote, not electoral college).

On paper, based on history, this was an election the Democrats SHOULD lose.

1) Party fatigue - it's a rarity, especially since the end of the FDR-Truman dominance of the 1930s and 40s, a party hangs onto the White House for more than two terms. The people get restless with the same party in power and generally flip it back to the opposition party when the incumbent's eight years (or variation of eight years) are up. This has happened in:

1960 - Eisenhower is constitutionally barred from running. His Vice President, Richard Nixon, loses to Democrat JFK.

1968 - Johnson could have run for a second term, but opted not to. Regardless, the Democrats held the WH for eight years before Johnson's Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, loses to Richard Nixon.

1976 - Ford runs for a term of his own, taking control of the GOP's ticket, after Nixon's resignation. Despite Nixon not serving a full eight years, his party did and it flips back to the Democrats.

1980 - Carter loses reelection.

1984 - Reagan wins reelection.

1988 - Bucking 28 years of history, the incumbent party keeps the White House after holding it for eight years.

1992 - Bush, after 12 years of Republican control, loses reelection.

1996 - Clinton wins reelection.

2000 - Gore wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral college*. As a testament to party fatigue, despite high approval numbers for Bill Clinton, Gore fails to put Bush away in a very close, narrow election. Sure, there's a lot of evidence Bush didn't actually win - but it was a close election despite a popular president, who the VP served under, relative peace and economic stability.

2004 - Bush wins reelection.

2008 - The Republicans are ousted after eight years of controlling the White House.

2012 - Obama wins reelection.

2016 - ?

So, only once in the past 56 years has a party held the White House for more than eight years in a row - Reagan/Bush. That was nearly 30 years ago.

In more recent history, party swapping has been pretty consistent. Because of that, just ignoring everything else about the election (candidates, etc), this was an election that favored the Republicans - even with Obama's approval.

2) Hillary's popularity. Hillary does not have high favorability ratings. Is it fair? No. But it is what it is. A lot of Americans don't trust her and certainly don't like her. That puts any candidate at risk of losing. She just happens to be going up against a candidate who's way more disliked than she is.

But you also look at his keys and it's not a surprise she's losing. But I think even he'd concede it's unlikely his keys hold this election cycle for the very reason I outlined above - this is an election unlike any other.

Now had it been Kasich? I think Hillary would be in trouble.

[bigdarryl]

2. Well I hear what your saying BUT your forgetting one thing

His keys has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton's popularity.If Sanders had gotten the nomination.his keys in fact would be 7 keys down because of primary key.He didn't give the policy change key to the democrats because he claims the Iran Nuclear agreement didn't get broad recognition.from the American people and he didn't give the Paris Climate Change accord a win either for the same reason in my opinion that is questionable.Because on the 4th of November just before the election the Climate Change Agreement gets ratified by the nations.Plus if the media doesn't cover news on it the American people won't reconize it.Thats the world we live in now I have his latest printed book which was printed in August he stated his prediction was either 4 or 5 keys down for the democrats because at that time he didn't see a 3rd party major challenge until he saw Johnson polling at 13 percent.I don't know what polling he was looking at

[RBInMaine]

3. Lichtman's whole system is based on a TRADITIONAL election. This is NOT a traditional year at all.

Lichtman included a HUGE caveat in that his system could be wrong because this is such an unusual Republican candidate. Johnson probably won't get 5%. But even if he does, Trump is such a massively unusual Republican candidate that his system would fail, and he has as much as said so.