Allan Lichtman: Presidential Historian on the US Election ahead of the announcement of Kamala Harris' running mate

The US Presidential Election is less than 100 days away. 

Kamala Harris is expected to announce her pick for Vice President today ahead of their first public appearance together in Pennsylvania tomorrow. 

Presidential Historian Allan Lichtman has correctly predicted almost every US Election since the 1980s through a process called ‘The 13 Keys to the White House’. 

He told Ryan Bridge that while he hasn’t made a final prediction yet, a lot would have to go wrong for the Democrats to lose the election. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To the United States we Go. Karmena Harris is set
to announce her vice presidential pick tomorrow, ahead of their
first public appearance together in Pennsylvania on Thursday. Presidential historian
Alan Lickman has correctly predicted almost every US election since
the nineteen eighties through a process called the Thirteen Keys

(00:20):
to the White House. He's with us this morning, Allen,
thanks for being on the show. Who's going to Win?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well? I have not made a final prediction yet. I've
been misinterpreted as having made one, but I'm not going
to make one until after the Democratic Convention. But I
have been saying for months, and the switch from Biden
to Harris has not changed that that a lot would
have to go wrong for the Democrats to lose. That's

(00:47):
certainly possible, that can happen. Things are very fluid, But
a lot would have to go wrong for the Democrats
to lose. According to my Keys to the white House system,
which taps into the structure of how American presidential elections
really work as votes up or down on the strength

(01:09):
and performance of the White House Party, and the system
has been right since I predicted Ronald Reagan's reelection in
April nineteen eighty two, nearly three years ahead of time,
when America was then in the worst recession since the
Great Depression, and sixty percent of Americans thought Ronald Reagan
was too old to run again. And of course I

(01:32):
was virtually alone in predicting Donald Trump's win in twenty sixteen, which,
as you can imagine, did not make me very popular
in ninety percent plus Democratic Washington, d C. Where I
teach at American University.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
That your formula works, you're stuck to it, You're held
to ground. I think that's when I last interviewed you.
You've got these thirteen keys. Some of them are about
the economy, you know, the short term economy, the long
term economy. Obviously there's been inflation in the US. The
stock markets are in turmoil at the moment. Do you
weight the keys differently or they all weighted the same.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
There are two secrets to the successful use of the keys,
and one is they are weighted as one. The problem
is when you wight parameters of any system, they have
to be based on past elections, but the weights will
then unpredictably change in a future election, creating errors. Secondly,

(02:33):
there are trigger effects, so if one key is big enough,
it will trigger other keys. For example, in the sixties,
the war in Vietnam triggered Lyndon Johnson to withdraw from
his re election campaign, losing the incumbency key, losing the
party contest key. The war created a great deal of

(02:54):
social unrest and democratic losses in the midterm elections of
nineteen In sixty six.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
You mentioned the incumbency key. Does Harris get that even
though she wasn't the president in this term?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, you know, I was very critical of the democrats
shameful public trashing of their incumbent president, and I thought
they were heading for the disaster of both losing the
incumbency key if they forced Biden out and losing the
party contest key, because they were heading for a big brawl.

(03:30):
But somehow the Democrats grew a spine in a brain,
did the right thing, united behind Harris, which avoided the
loss of the contest key. And so this major change
only cost the Democrats one key, the incumbency key, and
did not fundamentally change my assessment.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
What about Robert F. Kennedy, one of your keys is
a third party being involved. What do you think his
chances will be? And who does it hurt.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Third parties in my system count against the White House
Party because it's a sign of discontent. But it's a
high threshold key. You've got to anticipate the third party
candidate to be getting at least five percent of the vote.
Of course I don't know that, So it's the one
time I have to use a poll. But I don't
take the poll at face value because typically, as a

(04:26):
result of the Lickman wasted vote syndrome, I love you
RFK JR. Which can't win, so I won't vote for you.
I cut the poll numbers in half. So he's got
to be polling at at least ten percent. I don't
think that's going to happen.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Ell in one of your caves. The final question is
incumbent charisma challenge a charisma, who's more charismatic.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's not a question of who's more charismatic. It's a
question of whether these candidates fulfill my criteria, which is
they have to be one of these once in a
generation inspirational, broadly appealing candidates who converts members of the opposition,
like the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt or the Republican Ronald Reagan,

(05:12):
who won six elections in landslides or near landslides. Clearly,
Paris has not yet emerged as an FDR, and Trump
is not a Reagan. He lost two elections in the
votes of the people by ten million votes. There are
not Trump Democrats like there were Reagan Democrats. He only

(05:35):
appeals to a narrow base and thus does not fit
the criteria either. For more from news Talks at b
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